training part 2

Hello again folks,
Here's a bit of advice that I've been given from a guy who's just crossed Greenland,

"Ive been back from Greenland now for a few weeks and I am still recovering from the massive weight loss (I lost over a stone) and I am still exhausted, you know that feeling when you are a bit jet lagged. I was fine for the first week and then it started to hit me.

I had an incredible time, the experience and journey is indescribeable, so much so that it is taking me a while to write it up and do the experience justice.

Without going in to detail adnauseum, here are some key pointers.

Training
A bit different for me as I had cycled 9 hours a day for 30 days the month before I left so I had a great aerobic base and therefore concentrated on weights and tyre towing on wet sand for the 4 weeks before I left. If you have a good base then concentrate on building strength around the abdominal's and lower back. If you are going in the spring then you will probably be flown up onto the icecap and then make your way all the way across to Kangerlusuuaq to 660. So you wont have to negotiate the crevasse fields of the East coast - these took us 3.5 days to get through, on one day we did 300m in 5 hours! So strength is what is needed more than fitness, and you will get fit quickly once up on the ice cap and you have built up to the 30km per day marching.

My one comment would be to ease off on any high impact exercise a good month before you leave i.e. running as you will want to save your knees, as you wan to avoid any muscle or tendon niggles while on the trip, so swimming and cycling are good"

Also I've spoken to Sheffield children's hospital today, and I am hoping to raise some money for them on the trek (kids from all over the country are sent to them, so its not just benefiting the local community).