“Hi everybody, here it’s Kevin here, and sort of sitting in Punta Arenas waiting for our flight out. And ahh today I’m just reflecting on ahhh we’re really thing about why our our trip was such a success. I think on a number of points it’s quite simple why, why it really worked out. Ray put together arguably the best team possible he could for this, and ahhh if you know, with with Richard being arguably the most experienced Polar trekker in the world and getting us to the start line was for us, with really, you know all the kit to make this work out as best it could and ahhh you know we worked as a team out there. We made navigational, route finding decisions together, ahhh as a team. Ahhhh figuring out where we’re going to go and what we’re going to do and making all our critical decisions together. Ahhhumm ahhhummm once we started we were moving through a cravass field, and I felt my experience through that helped a lot. Errr I travelled through the glaciers of British Columbia alot and feel that my ahh umm y’know ideas and route finding decisions err across the cravasses were actually were were essential. As was ahhh you know I said my cold weather experience you know nothing compares me to Richard, but ahhh two major Alaskan expeditions certainly didn’t hurt. Umm our team was really strong, we carried equal weight throughout and that’s critical to success as well. And ahhh and ahhh Ray’s nutritional guidance was ahhh essential too. Ummm it was so important that at the end of each day, in terms of umm ahhh vitamins and muscle milk and everything else errr it was sooo good and we felt so good. Richard said he had never felt so good on an expedition as this one. So ahhh I think those are a few points you know that made it work, working as a team. I think that there’s no “I” in team as , as Ray was known to say throughout the whole thing and ahhh I think that’s the key to anything. Good teamwork, you can’t work as an individual. Cheers and ahhh we’ll talk soon. Bye for now.”

Reflections (Listen to Audio)

“Hey everybody it’s Ray calling. Ahhumm Kevin Richard and I are still trapped in our tent as you can see from the photo, in really bad weather here at ahhh Patriot Hills. Waiting to get a plane back to Chile, so the we can send you guys all these awesome photos from the finish. Ahhh I hope you enjoyed the one we sent so far and we promise as soon as we get into Chile to send you blogs from all three of us and photos of all three of us carrying all kinds of banners. So ahhh just stay tuned, thye haven’t been able to land the plane. They will try again tomorrow (Jan13th at 1:00am) and hopefully we’ll be in Chile by Wednesday morning, Ok Bye.”

January 11 (Listen to Audio)

“Hey everybody it’s Ray calling from the South Pole Quest Team. Kevin and I called and left a blog yesterday , but apparently Anton said we had some technical difficulties and we haven’t been in touch since. So I apologize for not ahhum blogging again, Kevin and I errr.. or Richard, until until just now. But I’m just leaving a quick message. We’re still at Patriot Hills ahhhummm the launching point for the expedition on Antarctica waiting for our flight back to Chile. As soon as we get back to Chile, we are going to be sending Anton a bunch of photos and Anton and Nick are going to put them together, and it’s all the banner photos from the South Pole. With all the school banners and everything. So you’ll get a chance to see in higher resolutions, so you can make out the logos and stuff. We weren’t able to upload them (from Antarctica) they’re, it’s just too hard to send such large files (on a 1.2k data connection). So keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of days, and as soon as we get off Antarctica and into Chile, we’re sending the files and we’ll have a nice picture album there for you. So again thank you ahhh for all of your support everybody, we just, it’s just, we’re so happy for all the support you’ve given us and it’s just you guys have made our dream come true and we hope that ahhhum ahhh you guys have enjoyed our journey. ahhhumm there so much more to say, but we’re going to wait now until we ge to Punta Arenas and get some photos to you guys and and you can ??????. Thanks so much and you’ll hear from us in the next 24-48, ok Bye. ”

Still at Patriot Hills (Listen to Audio)

Unfortunately our blog got cut off due to bad reception today. I’m sure Ray will catch us all up tomorrow. Enjoy the photo.

I spoke with Ray yesterday, he was thrilled to be at that pole, and wanted to take time to thank all of the volunteers, friends, and sponsors who made this expedition possible. Especially Iridium, Gatoraide, Energy and Procurement magazine and Crocs. We have reached millions of people with the i2P message of inspiring everyone to go make a difference. Ray, Kevin and Richard left the South Pole last night and are in Patriot Hills in western Antarctica. They will camp there until a flight takes them back to Punta Arenas Chile on Jan 10th (weather dependant). The attached photo is of the Ilyushin transport that lands on the ice and carries all of the gear and people back and forth to Chile. Once in Chile it will probably take 2-3 days for the team to make their way back to Ottawa.

“Hey everybody, it’s Ray calling, we’ve a really quick message. We wanted to pull he sat phone out and call you guys and give you live updates throughout the day today. But it was sooo cold we knew that the phone would would freeze and and and we wouldn’t be able to leave any messages. So the great news is we have arrived in world record time at the geographic South Pole, in 33 days 23 hours and 30 minutes. We are here guiys and in the coming next 24-48 hours you’ll get a lot of photos, ahhh you will get blogs from the other guys, ahhum Kevion and Richard have messages for you they just wanted me to pass on the quick message, that we are here and we are getting warmed up in our tent right now and we are going to sleep because we did 24 nautical miles again today to get here, so there you go, rock on, we’ll talk to you later.”

We did it! (Listen to Audio)

After a break from training for three weeks, I started up again just before Christmas. I was excited to get back at it so that was a good sign that I was recharged and ready to face another season. I thought my cross-country season was over until March but as it turns out, I have been offered the wonderful opportunity to travel to Scotland and Spain to run a couple of cross-country races in Edinburgh and Seville. I feel extremely lucky and grateful to Thelma Wright for all her hard work at setting everything up for me and another young from Kitchener. So I arrive in Edinburgh, January 8^th, race on the 10^th, leave for Seville on the 13^th and race there on the 18^th and fly back the following day. I am pretty thrilled to be racing in such competitive races. I have arranged with my profs to make up for any lost work and lessons and Jon has been great getting me fit again in such a short period of time. We got a couple of dumps of snow here in Victoria which made training a bit trickier than usual. The first race will be tough but I think I will be ok. I have done a couple weeks of hill repeats and grass workouts and they went well. I will do up a report once I am back with some photos. Once I am back, I’ll be running my first indoor track meet on the weekend of January 31^st in Seattle, with the Vikes, so stay tuned!

I forgot to mention in previous blogs a question I asked the team about their sleds. Now that they are almost finished are their sleds lighter ? The short answer is, they may be but they don’t feel like it. Even though they have gone through a lot of food the altitude is sapping their strength and the sleds feel just as heavy as when they started. The team is at about 10,000 feet in altitude so oxygen is reduced by around 30%. The mild effects of altitude sickness grow exponentially over 9000 feet and include shortness of breath, elevated pulse, coughing and disorientation. So, even though it should feel easier for them the higher they get the tougher it is.

” Hey everybody, it’s Ray calling from the South Pole Quest Team on Day 32 and I’m calling to give you some news that you’re probably not going to believe. We covered thirty nautical miles today. That’s fifty five kilometers approximately. Ahhummm.. why you say? Why would we want to go out and ahhh cover so much mileage in one day. Well I’ll tell you what; the weather has been very unpredictable lately as you know already from our blogs, and Kevin, and Richard and I made a decision that if the weather window opened up. If we had a nice sunny day, that we would take full advantage of it and go as far as we possibly could. So basically for the last twenty hours (ending approx at 5:00am EST Jan 6) on Day 32 we’ve been… well I’ve been trekking and the guys have been skiing this thirty nautical miles. Ahhumm.. what a beautiful day it’s been. Incredibly sunny, cold. We’re not exactly sure how cold, but Richard figures somewhere around -35 ahhh without the wind, and ummm… but we’re ahhh we’re motivated. We’re twenty four nautical miles from the South Pole, right now. And so we’re going to grab some sleep, get something to eat and we’re going to head out for day 33 and try and ahhhh get those twenty four miles done as fast as we possibly can. Hope you’re all having a great day and thank you for following along. Ohh by the way, for day 33 and I’m.. and the rest of the way to the South Pole, I’ll be calling in shorter blogs, and we’ll all be calling in from the South Pole when we arrive, Ok, bye bye.”

Now we’re moving! (Listen to Audio)

Some technical difficulties with the computer equipment has prevented Ray from sending a phto today. We hope to have it resolved by tomorrow. FYI the whiteout conditions experienced by the team are the worst that Richard Webber has ever seen at either pole.

“Hey everybody, it’s Ray calling from the South Pole Quest Team. We started out this morning with great anticipation of doing our fourth twenty mile day in a row, but unfortunately after 6 miles the whiteout we were in, and I mean WHITEOUT so white that we couldn’t see a thing. It was so severe we decided that we would camp for a few hours and then try to head out again and ahhh get a few more miles in and head towards twenty. But unfortunately even after a few hours of camping the weather has not improved, so we decided, that unfortunately, that’s it for today. Ahhumm, but we wake up and tomorrow morning and we start our march toward the south pole. We will reach 89 degrees tomorrow and ahhhh do our very best to be at the south pole ahhh in the next few days. So umm thank you all so much for following our blog and for your support. It’s been bitter sweet and we wanted to do 88 degrees in three days ahhh a degree in three days, unfortunately weather like this in Antarctica is what can happen, and it happened to us, and it stopped us. But the sweet part of the bitterness is that we actually did do a degree of travel in three days. We had our three twenty miles in a row. Ahhummm so there you go. So have a great night and to everybody in the next day or two. Bye Bye.”

Day 30 Whiteout