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Jonny Huntington
207 Plays11 months ago
Jonny Huntington is an elite para-skier, climber and explorer. A former British Army Officer and ultra-distance runner, he had a brain bleed in 2014 that left him paralysed from the neck down on his left side. Following extensive rehabilitation and discharge from the Army, he returned to the world of elite sport as a disabled athlete, competing for GB in Cross Country Skiing. He is now setting his sights on becoming the first ever disabled person to travel from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole solo, unsupported and unassisted. The South Pole expedition is not just a personal challenge for Jonny; it's about breaking boundaries within the disabled community and inspiring the world to recognise the limitless potential within each of us.
Follow Jonny on Instagram here
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Transcript
Johnny Huntington's Journey to the South Pole
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the UK Run Chat Podcast. I'm Joe Williams and on this episode, Michelle speaks with Johnny Huntington. Johnny is an elite paraskia climber and explorer. A former British army officer and ultra distance runner, he had a brain bleed in 2014 that left him paralyzed from the neck down on his left side. Following extensive rehabilitation and discharge from the army, he returned to the world of elite sport as a disabled athlete competing for Great Britain in cross country skiing.
00:00:30
Speaker
He is now setting his sights on becoming the first ever disabled person to travel from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole solo, unsupported and unassisted. The South Pole expedition is not just a personal challenge for Johnny, it's about breaking boundaries within the disabled community and inspiring the world to recognise the limitless potential within each of us.
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00:00:53
Speaker
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00:01:17
Speaker
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Ultra-Marathon Training and Endurance Sports
00:01:41
Speaker
Hi, Johnny. Thank you so much for joining us on the UK Run Chat podcast today. How are you?
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, really good. Thanks, Michelle. No, pleasure to pleasure to speak to you. It's really kind of you to have me on. Yeah. So so you've just finished what most people will consider an epic ultra marathon from Manchester to London finishing last week, haven't you? But might surprise people to to know that that's actually in training for a much bigger challenge. Would you like to just introduce yourself briefly? Tell us what you're kind of aiming to achieve over the next 12 to 15 months and
00:02:15
Speaker
and just give people a feel for what this interview is gonna be about.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So my name's Johnny Huntington. I have a weird job. I tend to refer to myself as like an endurance athlete and a polar explorer, just in sort of in lieu of anything more pithy, but I'm a para athlete as well. So I had a brain bleed in 2014 and yeah, have been sort of physically disabled since then.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, but you've got some big, big goals coming up, haven't you? Yeah, so I mean, there's sort of the, I guess the, the sort of landmark one that I'm, you know, that everything's pointing towards at the minute is in 2024, I'm seeking to become the first ever disabled person to ski to the South Park solo on solo and unsupported, which will be hopefully a really cool trip. Yeah.
00:03:16
Speaker
it certainly sounds it so I mean where does that goal come from? Just tell us a little bit about how you started with you know just getting into endurance sports really where does that come from? Yeah so I mean it's a long and windy history if you don't mind but I'll try and keep it sort of reasonably brief like I
00:03:38
Speaker
I started, I properly got into running as running as opposed to doing it for other sports. Basically a mate tricked me into running a half marathon in 2011.
00:03:55
Speaker
I did that and it went pretty well and I kind of thought actually that was really fun. I like doing that and I'm quite good at it. So it kind of grew legs from there really.
00:04:13
Speaker
on the back of that entered a marathon and I kind of I was very very like naive to the landscape at the time. So I went online and just found a marathon that was I think like a couple of months away.
00:04:31
Speaker
And it happened to be one of the endurance life events who do like the coastal trail series. And I'd never really done any trail running before. So I literally, I think it was about,
00:04:45
Speaker
I think it was about two weeks before the race, went into like bath, because I was living in Somerset with my parents at the time, and like picked up a pair of trail shoes because they were new to me, like didn't know what trail shoes were. So like grabbed a pair of zero drop innovates, just literally not knowing any better. And did the Gower coastal trail series marathon in November of 2011.
00:05:15
Speaker
and came eighth in it. And that was kind of the start of the love affair with trail running really. I did that race and on the back of that I kind of thought
00:05:30
Speaker
this, this is something that I like. And actually, as, as you'll know, because trail running is kind of a bit vague in terms of the distances, like, and we've been told to like, as we've finished, basically, we were told, Oh, yeah, like a bit of a coast path had collapsed. So actually, we think you ended up running about 29 miles.
00:05:50
Speaker
So it was kind of, yeah, my first marathon was my first ultra as well. But I absolutely loved it. It was an incredible day, really, really cool. Everyone was super friendly. And I kind of thought, you know what, I can really get on board with this. And so at the same time, I kind of, I did what I tend to do with most stuff, which is to start reading about it as well. And it was,
00:06:19
Speaker
It was the same sort of time that Dean Carnassus had bought his book out.
00:06:28
Speaker
what were the other two that were around at the time, it's sort of born to run and feet in the clouds. That's right, yeah. So like, yeah, it was that kind of, you know, some really like, really, really well written books about running were out and like, you know, they were just telling these sort of epic tales of 100 milers in the States and stuff. And I was kind of like, you know what, like, I reckon, I reckon that's a good,
00:06:55
Speaker
like a good thing to aim for like I don't really wanna I sort of don't care too much about doing the same race again and trying to do it quicker and obviously you know trail running you kind of one marathon isn't equitable to another so so kind of running for better times seems slightly redundant under those circumstances um
00:07:17
Speaker
So kind of got kind of bitten by the bug pretty quickly, really. Like did a 35 mile or two months later. I mean, I was, I was lucky in that I was only sort of 24, 25 at the time. So I was sort of young enough that I was, you know, able to recover really fast, like I wasn't having to take masses of downtime in between these races.
00:07:38
Speaker
And I played loads of field hockey as a, you know, like as a student and growing up and stuff. So sort of had like a good base level of fitness anyway. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was just kind of just just really embraced effectively like bumbling around trails and stuff.
00:07:57
Speaker
um and like going out for hours at a time and you know you'd get to the point where like your mum would come looking for you and I've no idea how she expected to find me given that she knew what I was doing and she was also in the car but like you know it's sort of yeah you just you know you kind of would just go and get lost and and you know basically go out until you stopped enjoying it or it got dark or you got hungry
00:08:20
Speaker
yeah yeah that's the best thing about trail running isn't it you can just go out and explore it doesn't you don't really need the direction do you i guess
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's totally it and like I you know sort of absolutely loved it and it was I I didn't know this at the time because it was a little I was I was sort of training to join the army at the same time, but I hadn't I hadn't kind of signed on the dotted line yet But it was kind of this was all incredibly good training for all of that as well. Yeah And but yeah, so I I sort of slowly slowly got into this
00:08:57
Speaker
super niche at the time, you know, this back in like 2011, 2012 world of ultra running. And like, I think really the, it did at the time seem to be a very niche community. You know, I don't really think it hit the mainstream at all to a certain extent. And like,
00:09:19
Speaker
you know, I think the only real online resources that I found that were sort of ones I kept on going back to were Irunfar.com, which still is around and exists, et cetera. And then there was a super niche blog called like Kevin Sayre's ultra running blog, which I don't know if you've ever come across, but it's great to like, it's just, it's literally an archived web page.
00:09:47
Speaker
Um, and it's great to dot around that it's kind of, it's one that seems to have been like contributed to over time by like lots of different ultra marathon runners. Primarily, I think in the US. Um, but it was kind of everything from some, some good nutrition strategies and stuff.
Recovery from Stroke and Rehabilitation
00:10:09
Speaker
all the way to kind of a slightly tongue-in-cheek, like t-shirt etiquette, you know, around races where it was considered slightly rude to turn up to a shorter race in the... Yeah, it was considered slightly rude to turn up to a shorter race in the t-shirt of a longer race that you'd already completed. Oh, I never knew that. I probably broke etiquette in the past.
00:10:36
Speaker
I turned up to one in September of this year and stepped out of the car and saw someone wearing a UTMB shirt. And I kind of, I was just like, oh, mate, you don't know how many etiquette rules you're breaching right now. But I think it was all sort of in good fun. I don't think anyone really cares. But no, it was just these stupid little things that was kind of a really nice, you know, you kind of felt that you were part of a
00:11:06
Speaker
a really underground community of people doing something that was super peculiar. And that kind of, you know, you'd turn up to these races and you kind of felt like you at least got each other, which was really cool.
00:11:23
Speaker
So that was kind of how I got into like ultra running and, you know, proceeded over the course of the next couple of years to continue to run sort of long distances up to sort of 50, 60 and 100 milers, which I probably should have paused for a year when I went to Sandhurst because you basically spend a year getting thrashed around fields and sleep deprived generally and stuff anyway.
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, it looks very tough, the training there. Is it as tough as it looks? Sort of. I think, sorry, that was a bit of a bolshe answer, but yes and no is kind of the best way of looking at it. I think only in the sense that
00:12:10
Speaker
You know, being sleep deprived is really hard. Like you can't train for that. It's miserable anyway. Like, I mean, anyone with a child will know that it's pretty grim. But at the same time, you know, the course is designed for people to pass it. And I think I was in the really fortunate position that I turned up.
00:12:31
Speaker
like very very fit compared to most people because I'd been ultra running in my in my free time basically so you know the this sort of prospect from my point of view is spending like a week or two in the field sort of tabbing around carrying heavy backpacks and stuff
00:12:47
Speaker
like that was stuff that I did for fun anyway. Yeah. And it did make it like it made life considerably easier going through training that I was physically fit because it just meant that when you were out on these exercises and stuff, even though the things you were doing were designed to be difficult anyhow, you know, your your ability to recover from and your ability to resist fatigue was so much better than most people's that you you know, you kind of
00:13:15
Speaker
everyone was struggling to a certain extent. You were just struggling less than anyone else. Which, you know, if nothing else from a moral perspective is always quite nice. Well, yeah, I mean, is that a purely physical thing? Or does the mental aspect of, I mean, you've done hundred milers, that was taking immense amount of just hard talking with yourself, really. You know, did that help you? Yeah, you know what, it really did. And actually,
00:13:43
Speaker
particularly when I was going through rehab as well actually, like I always used to think of my moods during 100 milers as like a sort of the classic like sine, cosine sort of wave. So it was sort of, if you've got your baseline as the middle of the graph, then you are gonna be constantly dipping below that and then going above it and then below it again. And you've kind of got,
00:14:10
Speaker
as you know as I'm sure most sort of athletes will know like as you build up more and more fatigue you kind of you lose a bit of control over your moods and so you tend to get this pattern of you know either being very low or being quite high during races and I think certainly for me like
00:14:32
Speaker
I would suggest that probably the ultra runners or one of the ultra runners goals is to kind of try and level that curve out as much as you can so that you're not you know getting these massive mood swings you're just kind of able to ride it out nice and smoothly but like
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah, I, I sort of constantly refer to rehab as like, it was like running ultra marathon. You know, you, you effectively have sort of good days and bad days, and you're trying to level them out as much as you can. And, and your,
00:15:06
Speaker
You're also very much operating in that environment because the you know, the big goal of rehab is so massive You're sort of going back to using like the checkpoint system So to enable you to kind of take stuff like a day at a time So no it was it was
00:15:27
Speaker
it was really provenant from my point of view that I had had experience of doing this stuff. And I think in particular, like the difference between doing it as, you know, or doing, you know, long outdoor stuff that's pretty miserable as part of the military and doing the ultras is that you do the ultras voluntarily. Yeah. Or I'm sorry, I should say, obviously, I volunteered to join the army, but like this, there is something,
00:15:56
Speaker
that's very, you know, helps you, I think, develop a personal resilience. If you know that it's your fault, you're out there. Like, I think that's something where you, you know, because there's nothing to stop you from stopping. You know, if it's just you that sort of got yourself there,
00:16:18
Speaker
There isn't any of that, there's no peer pressure, there's no institutional pressure or I'm failing my job if I stop now. It's simply a case of I've come here off my own volition for a nice weekend out. It's now three in the morning and I'm really cold and tired. Please, can I stop? And it's kind of, you really do have to search quite deep inside yourself at that point.
00:16:47
Speaker
to kind of give yourself the answers in terms of why you're not going to stop. And I think that was something which I really benefited from in terms of the stuff that happened to me afterwards. So that was kind of in a weird way, like really, really thankful that I had sort of fallen into this
Cross-Country Skiing and New Challenges
00:17:09
Speaker
slightly perverse sort of world of ultra running before I got injured.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's really helped you, hasn't it? So this is now a good point then to talk about about your stroke. So what happened? And, you know, how do you come back from that after being so active?
00:17:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I was in the gym in Winchester, so I had literally commissioned from Sandhurst in April of 2014, and I had, for the record, I'd run my last ultra as an able-bodied athlete. In March of that year, I ran the Trans Gran Canaria,
00:17:53
Speaker
which was so cool like it's kind of one of those ones if you if you told me in retrospect that was gonna be the last ultra I ever ran as an AB athlete I'd kind of be pretty happy with it like it was an amazing race 78 miles 29,000 feet again like super lumpy
00:18:12
Speaker
the whole like the whole island came out to like cheer you on as you went round. It was absolutely incredible. Like, yeah, that was that was a real, real highlight. But then fast forward to June of that year, so 5th of June that year, I was in the gym in Winchester, which was where my phase two training establishment was. And yeah, was was doing a bit of a workout. And over the course of about 15 minutes, basically my my leg and my hand on my left side.
00:18:42
Speaker
the only way I could describe it is like they just started feeling a bit weird and like I sort of couldn't like got to the point where I don't know you you know how when something doesn't feel right you kind of try and stretch it out a little bit or you kind of think oh you know don't know what's going on here or whatever and so I'd sort of tried putting my hand above my head and I couldn't do it um
00:19:07
Speaker
And then I was so, everything, it's a difficult one to describe because I, you know, you're so, I was so unclear in terms of what was actually happening.
00:19:22
Speaker
but I was fully conscious the whole time. So effectively over the course of about 15 minutes, I went from standing to sitting to lying on the floor on my back. And over that period, basically from the neck down on my left side, like the entirety of my left side was completely paralyzed. So I had no movement at all below my neck.
00:19:46
Speaker
um still had full or mostly sensation so I could still like feel it I just couldn't move it at all um and I was completely conscious like no issues with speech or anything like that unfortunately my my officer in charge of me was having a physio like just across the other side of the gym so I sort of stuck my good hand in the air and basically shouted medic and um he recognized some of the signs of a stroke so they called an ambulance immediately
00:20:14
Speaker
I was taken to ICU in Winchester etc and that was effectively the start of a two and a half year rehab journey throughout the course of which they
00:20:29
Speaker
they they found that I'd had a bleed in my brain. So I had a pool of blood in my brain when they scanned it that was about the size of a small satsuma that was centered around the right motor cortex. So yeah, obviously hemispheres wise, like right side of the brain controls left side of the body, etc. And they weren't sure what caused it because they obviously there was there was a big pool of blood there so they couldn't see anything.
00:20:55
Speaker
later discovered about nine months later this was discovered that it was called a cavernous malformation so it was basically a bit of blood vesting that had formed incorrectly which allowed a slight build up of blood which in turn caused a slight increase of pressure in that area which caused this thing to eventually burst.
00:21:15
Speaker
um and we at like at the point at which they found out what it was because I had already done nine months of rehab and for neuro injuries it's generally that six months is like your golden window you're going to get you know your your best results really fast over that period and then you've got about two years um
00:21:39
Speaker
in the main, where anything outside of that two year period, you're unlikely to get proper neurological recovery. So at the nine month point, when they found out what had actually caused the bleed, they basically said to me, look, we can go in and operate and take this thing out so that it won't bleed again.
00:22:00
Speaker
but we're not 100% confident that the ops are never 100% success rate, so we may not get it all out, in which case it'll just grow back.
00:22:12
Speaker
or we go in, dig it out and we actually dig, we have to dig through effectively. I say dig into the brain. I'm sure that's brain surgery is a little bit more sophisticated than that. Yeah. So they, they poke something through something anyway, but, um, but yeah, they, they basically said, look, we have to go through your motor cortex to get to the bad vessel. Um,
00:22:37
Speaker
So there is a high likelihood that we will re-damage the bit that you've just rehabbed. And I basically sort of said to my, you know, I was still walking with a pretty noticeable limp at that point. I mean, I still walk with a pretty noticeable limp now, but, you know, I've done nine months of really hard rehab and I sort of said to my neurosurgeon, I was like, look, obviously I don't have a reference point for this, but I'm reasonably inclined
00:23:05
Speaker
to accept the risk of another bleed on the basis that I know how much rehab I've already done and I don't really want to compromise that.
00:23:19
Speaker
But I sort of said, I was like, look, if you were in my position, what would you do? And he said, yeah, I would leave it as well. So I've still got this bit of bad blood vesting in my head. But the risk of a re-bleed is very, very small indeed. So I kind of think I'd rather crack on with what I've got. And if anything happens again, we'll deal with it at that point in time. So whatever, basically.
00:23:46
Speaker
But yeah, so coming back to sort of life post injury, like I was super fortunate in that I was sent to rehabilitate at Headley Court, which at the time was the military's like premier rehabilitation hospital. So, I mean, we were getting literally
00:24:03
Speaker
like it was nine to five, like five and a half days a week, you know, sort of Monday till Saturday lunchtime. And you are literally, it's like being at school, you're given a time, you're yeah, like you're given a rehab timetable, all the physios, like one on one physio, two on one physio, your hydro pool, so you can learn to walk in a manner again, which is like de weighted, so you're not damaging joints or anything. And it allows you to get the patterning in really properly.
00:24:33
Speaker
And again, it was super fortunate from my point of view that because I'd been a bit of a geek about running when I was doing it, I had a sort of amateur but workable comprehension of biomechanics, all of these factors, which allowed me to... It just gave me a slightly better understanding of what I was trying to achieve when I was relearning to walk.
Ambitions and Perceptions of Disability
00:25:03
Speaker
because I had to, like, with my leg, because my leg was kind of the epicenter of the bleed, it's effectively the lower down my body you get, the worse the injury gets. But like, when my hand sort of came back online, I didn't have to learn to use my fingers again, I had to strengthen them, but my brain knew how to use them properly.
00:25:29
Speaker
so like I played the violin as a kid and like I can still play the violin I haven't had to like relearn any of that yes where it's like with my foot and with my leg it didn't know what to do
00:25:48
Speaker
So with the walking, we literally had to go from scratch. And you were teaching yourself effectively like a muscle group at a time, like how it worked.
00:26:02
Speaker
And it was a pretty, it was a very slow process, certainly. And, you know, there are, there's a significant amount of function that I still don't have. So I helpfully for a trail runner, I don't have any proprioception in my left ankle at all. Okay, yeah, that must be very challenging. It's, yeah, it's sort of, you certainly have to be very careful where you're putting your feet, basically. And like, I mean, yeah, it's sort of, I,
00:26:32
Speaker
You know, it did make, I mean, basically for a long time, I didn't think I was ever going to be able to run again at all.
00:26:40
Speaker
just because there's so much coordination at quite high speed involved that having to coordinate effectively the entirety of one limb manually is pretty intense. So I sort of left a left-headly back end of 2015, having done two stints there, not able to run at all.
00:27:10
Speaker
and basically had effectively got to the point where I was just like, yeah, I'm pretty sure this is never going to happen.
00:27:18
Speaker
And I got into through one of the military charities, the armed forces, Paris, no sports team, I got into cross country skiing. And I kind of the eyes when I was in hospital, I had had I was listening to some random like podcast or desert island discs, it was something like that. With a guy called Ben Saunders on it,
00:27:43
Speaker
who is a very, very highly accomplished British polar explorer and former, happens to be a former British army officer as well. And he's one of, I think only three people ever to have soloed the North and South Poles.
00:27:59
Speaker
And I was listening to him talking about soloing the North Pole, which I now, now that I've got a little bit more insight into it, know just how dangerous that is. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, like outrageously dangerous, basically.
00:28:17
Speaker
terrifying actually does the thought of it yeah yeah it's like i mean yeah properly and then but they're like i was you know at the time lying in hospital unable to move an entire side of me um but listening to him talking about the distances involved and i think it was about 400 i can't remember whether it was kilometers or miles but you know
00:28:39
Speaker
yeah and basically thinking at the time yeah that doesn't seem very far like that seems pretty doable um and kind of yeah i don't know whether it was i don't know whether it was just optimism or delusion but i was sort of listening to that and and like that that definitely at that point sewed a seed um in terms of doing some of these like super long distance events yeah
00:29:09
Speaker
And so then, yeah, when I got into cross-country skiing, that was a real, like, that was a real kind of, like, bold moment for me, because that was, that was ultra-distance running on snow with a bit of, like, fast downhill, like, that was ticking a lot of boxes, like, I really, really love doing that.
00:29:33
Speaker
So it was, yeah, sort of very, very lucky from my point of view that I found this charity because all of the stuff that I couldn't do anymore, because I wasn't able to run again at the time, like I managed to sort of get back into certainly the same stuff that Ultra Running gave me, was able to do that on skis.
00:29:59
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of the features of my injury, like the foot drop, the lack of proprioception and stuff, to a certain extent, a lot of those were masked simply by being on skis. Yeah. So is it a very different movement to running? Because, I guess, are you kind of picking your feet up on skis or are you just sliding them? No.
00:30:23
Speaker
No, that's fine. So, no, I mean, it is a much more sliding movement. So you sort of, you would pick your feet up very, very occasionally if you needed more grip, but you should be trying to like slide and glide being the sort of operative adage. But like,
00:30:43
Speaker
I think the, there were still aspects of the sport I had trouble with. So like cross country is in two, comes in two disciplines. Basically, you have classic technique, which is more backwards and forwards, it's much more like running. And then you have skate, which is much more like ice skating, but with long skis on.
00:31:04
Speaker
I can't skate because my injury basically the lack of proprioception in my ankle prevents me from putting the edge in and pushing off it. So yeah, so I can't do like half of cross country, but the half that I could do was the classic side. And actually, in a way, it was quite nice because it let me just concentrate on doing that.
00:31:28
Speaker
Um, and it was sort of, you know, again, it was pretty cool. Like you, you know, I sort of heard about some of these really like ninja ultra runners, you know, Scott Jarek cross country skied in the winter. Killian obviously did a load of ski mountaineering, you know, you, so it was, it was pretty cool to be like getting more involved in a sport where there was such close intrinsic links to running. Um.
00:31:54
Speaker
And then I wandered on and off the World Cup circuit over the next three years. I was not quick enough to be competing at the Paralympics. And there also wasn't a classification for me.
00:32:14
Speaker
The classification is basically all of the, you compete either standing, sitting or visually impaired, which is standing. And everyone that fits within those categories competes in those three categories. And they obviously they divide it as men and women as well.
00:32:34
Speaker
But so like, so I was competing in the men's standing category. And then what they do is that within that category, your disability, you're effectively like graded against a set of disability categories, and whichever one you fit into, that percentage time is taken off your, your finishing time within a race. And then you get kind of your adjusted time. Yeah. And then all of those adjusted times are then just ranked.
00:33:02
Speaker
Um, so it's slightly convoluted. I sort of, I hope that's sort of clear enough for anyone listening because it is a slightly, um, convoluted system, but it's, it's, it is. There's such a diverse range of disabilities out there. Um, that, that it is the fairest way of doing it to allow kind of weight to your disability to say, this might hamper you more than somebody else. Exactly. Yeah.
00:33:28
Speaker
That's it. It all no means a perfect system,
Training Regimen for South Pole Expedition
00:33:31
Speaker
but at the same time, it is a system which is, I would suggest, probably as inclusive as you're going to get. The shame about it, from my point of view, is that my disability wasn't accommodated for within that system.
00:33:48
Speaker
So I competed as a single bologna amputee. So I was an LW4, which was basically the lowest time factor. So I got no compensation for the fact that I basically couldn't turn right because of my injury and stuff. And don't get me wrong, as I say, there's such a broad range of disabilities. You can't possibly hope to accommodate for all of them within the system.
00:34:19
Speaker
But we ended up getting sort of the beginning of the 2019 season, like 2019 into 2020. And I raced at a World Cup in Vukati in Finland and basically sat down with my coaches and team manager and stuff afterwards. And they just said to me, it was the start of a new Paralympic cycle. And they just said to me, look, we all need to be honest about this, that you're not going to make the Paralympics.
00:34:49
Speaker
And it was kind of that thing where what genuinely did, because I knew that as well. I knew that I was way off the pace.
00:35:00
Speaker
And, you know, to be fair, they were really nice about it because what had softened the blow considerably from my point of view is they basically said to me, look, this is not about you not trying hard enough or not putting in the effort where it counts, et cetera. Like if you were turned up unfit, we could do something, you know, but the reality is you've turned up as fit as you can be. And just your injury doesn't let you compete.
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, so it was, I mean, yeah, in a lot of ways it was. And but the thing which was pretty cool about it is it it made me really consider like, what place skiing was going to have in my life moving forwards. Yeah. And I either had to look at it in terms of, okay, this is, you know, this will be relegated to a hobby that I will do once a year, or, you know, whenever I can afford it when I want to enjoy it.
00:35:57
Speaker
But, you know, doing skiing seriously is not a thing anymore. Or I view it in terms of, right, if I, you know, if I want to do something on skis, then I have to make that happen myself and I have to make that work myself.
00:36:14
Speaker
And so I sort of, you know, got home after that trip and was thinking about stuff and looking at stuff and I'd been lucky to have been invited on some expeditions with another charity, the Adaptive Grand Slam, which is run by a former parachute regiment officer.
00:36:34
Speaker
And they do, again, it's getting disabled people, both military and civvies, into the outdoors space through sort of mountaineering and more expeditionary means. And yeah, I kind of, I basically was looking at it in terms of, okay, well, why not look at doing something really long on skis? You know, I've done long before, I've done skiing before, let's try and let's see if they go together well.
00:37:06
Speaker
And yeah, kind of mulled this over a lot and eventually got to looking at the South Pole. And I, you know, had spoken to friends who had looked at going down there and doing stuff and was told, you know, it is pretty dangerous. You do have to be technically proficient, blah, blah, blah, which I certainly was not at the time.
00:37:33
Speaker
But I then also looked at it in terms of, okay, understood all of that. Like, I know there's a lot to learn, but is there actually anything in theory stopping me from going down there and doing it?
00:37:47
Speaker
you know, if I, if I tick all the boxes that I need to, to make sure that I'm competent and safe, etc. Like, is there anything stopping me from going down there? You know, aside from factors that I can basically resolve, and the answer was, was no, there wasn't. Yeah, so hence, hence the kind of the, yeah, the seed that I think had been sown quite a long time ago, back when I was in hospital for doing
00:38:15
Speaker
you know, weird, long, cold journeys and stuff, sort of started germinating into this plan to go down to the South Pole. And I was sort of doing lots of research, as you've probably established by this point, I'm pretty, like, I'm pretty nerdy about this stuff anyway. It's good to be armed with knowledge though, isn't it? And other people's experience.
00:38:41
Speaker
Well, exactly. And I think it's yeah, it sort of is one of those ones that like you, you know, I think you once you once you start to accumulate enough knowledge, then you have to kind of pass it down a little bit in terms of, OK, what am I going to listen to and what am I going to maybe ignore? Or what do I think is better? Certainly. But like, yeah, I certainly sort of sucking up as much knowledge as I as I can in the run up has been super valuable.
00:39:11
Speaker
I was really lucky in 2020 at the start of lockdown to be able to get in contact with Ben Saunders and sort of pick his brains about it. And the thing actually that I've really loved about getting into it is that similar to the sort of the, you know, similar to the ultra running community right at the start, or certainly when I encountered it, the polar community is again, just this sort of small niche group of weirdos.
00:39:38
Speaker
most of whom have their own views on stuff and most of whom have pretty strong views on stuff. But I'm more than willing to share those views. And it's been a really cool experience going and speaking to some people from this community as a disabled athlete. And actually the one thing which at no point in time has anyone ever queried is whether I'm going to be able to do it because of my disability.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, it's clear you have the self-belief to do it, don't you? And you have been preparing yourself. I mean, what have you been doing physically to get yourself there? Because it's in 12 months time, isn't it?
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been doing lots of running actually, which has been nice. I sort of managed to get back into running after a few false starts. Like after I left the military, I kind of had a couple of attempts at, you know, I live in South Devon, so I live right next to the southwest coast path.
Achievements and Test of Endurance
00:40:41
Speaker
um and it always used to be where i did all my training and and all of that so i i sort of had a couple of full starts going out on the coast path and you know like first time i tore my calf which was super painful because like the muscles just don't work properly um so like i don't have really any eccentric control in my left leg at all um particularly not in the left calf
00:41:08
Speaker
So like, yeah, going out in a set of, yeah, going out in a set of like zero drop shoes and trying to run, trying to run four K's from, from scratch basically was a pretty stupid idea. But you kind of, I think it's sort of, you know, you, you get a bit of momentum in your feet and then you get overexcited and then, yeah, then you sort of hear a loud pop and you're just like, oh yeah, that's, that's going to sting in the morning. So I kind of, I tried that and then I didn't try again for a long time.
00:41:36
Speaker
and i also like i had this i had this i think probably quite understandable hang up that i didn't like running outside i because i didn't like other people to see me run um completely understandable i think yeah yeah you know it's sort of one of those ones that even now like it's very very
00:41:57
Speaker
It's very, very obvious to me and like I've, you know, I've since also done a master's in sports science. So I'm pretty like in order to try and become more knowledgeable about my sports, my injury, et cetera. But like it's, it's very obvious to me. Like still when I'm running and stuff like that, that I'm injured. Um,
00:42:20
Speaker
And to be honest, it's probably not very obvious to other people. It's just some bloke running really slowly. But like, I certainly had a big sort of psychological hang up about going out and performing, particularly in something that I used to be so competent at. So lockdown for me actually in March of 2020,
00:42:48
Speaker
was in a way a bit of a gift because it meant that I could go out onto the coast path on my own and there wasn't anyone there and I must admit I sort of towards the end of it in particular was kind of taking the you know the government's recommended hour of exercise and I was sort of like okay yes but that's for you know that's for normal people not for elite athletes so I'm like
00:43:14
Speaker
I might have been doing a little bit more than that but I was also entirely on my own and isolated for many many kilometres in either direction so I kind of feel that was all right but no, so I literally started running again like 2k at a time and so over lockdown was pretty disciplined in terms of
00:43:39
Speaker
like increasing those distances very slowly and at a very manageable rate. But it meant that by the time we'd gotten to the September of that year, I was able to run a marathon again. Yeah, wow. I mean, to me, that seems like you've built up pretty quickly, you know, that's from doing virtually nothing to a marathon. That's, you know, that's great. So how did that feel then? Did that start to become
00:44:09
Speaker
so that's normal i guess yeah absolutely it was kind of i think i was i mean i think although i hadn't run in inverted commas because it's still pretty slow um you know i run about half the speed that i used to yeah um and
00:44:32
Speaker
And that is pretty much as fast as I can run. So kind of anything above about 10Ks an hour is pretty much impossible for me just because the cadence with which I cycle my left leg is not quick enough. And even that is like a flat out sprint for me. It's not sustainable. So I tend to sort of sit at about four to six Ks an hour.
00:45:01
Speaker
but actually the like the thing that's quite cool about that is that you know like the the reality is is that that is well six k's an hour is still pretty much a 24 hour 100 mile pace yeah that's a good point actually yeah you know it's it's it's sort of one of those ones that although it's
00:45:22
Speaker
although it's still really slow, from an ultra runner's point of view, it's like, actually, that's, that's fine. So yeah, so I sort of, I basically
00:45:34
Speaker
ignored speed work which is pretty nice because yeah let's be very clear like who likes doing hill sprints and threshold sessions you know um yeah save them for doing them on the ski oak when i'm indoors and there's a bin nearby but um
00:45:54
Speaker
But I did find that I was at least able to go out and if I picked the right races that had really generous cutoff times, I could go out and do a marathon in eight hours. And that was cool, because it just meant that I was at least in some shape or form running again. So yeah, so that would have been kind of, I think, September 2020 that I did that.
00:46:23
Speaker
And then I did a big kayaking challenge in 2021. So I kind of running was useful for that because there's a surprising amount of legwork in kayaking. So there was some really nice crossover training there. And then I was looking for something to do in the summer of 2022, just to again, give myself something to train for that year. And way back in 2012,
00:46:52
Speaker
a friend of mine and myself had been looking at potentially trying to set fastest known time for the southwest coast path, the whole thing. Yeah, okay. So like I had, you know, I had all the maps, we knew the, you know, we knew the route pretty well, we knew the, like,
00:47:13
Speaker
a lot I mean obviously I know the bit I live near you know like the back of my hand but we've done like bits of Reki and yeah and but it just never came off like for whatever reason like both quite busy 2012 it just never happened and at the point at which you got injured I just assumed it never it was never going to but then
00:47:36
Speaker
summer of 2022 i kind of dug these plans out again and basically thought okay fine well you know the fastest known time is definitely off the table because i think i would have had to run straight for 10 days in order to do it at the speed i run at so that was definitely not going to happen um but i did think it was achievable just to finish it yeah um
00:48:01
Speaker
So I trained pretty solidly for six months and doing pretty much back to effectively the 100 miler training that I had been doing previous. But basically because I run so slowly, some of the distances that I used to train to are basically just not achievable in a day anymore. So like, you know, you take a sort of
00:48:28
Speaker
Um, 40 miles, 40 miles Saturday and a 30 mile Sunday. Um, and like, you know, if I was to try and do that now, nowadays, I would be running for probably 16 hours on the, on the Saturday, if not longer.
00:48:43
Speaker
Um, and, and then, you know, another good sort of 12 hours on the, on the Sunday. And I, I just didn't, I, you know, was working full time at that point. I just didn't have time. So I basically changed everything into kilometers instead. And that kind of made it more manageable. So it's like interesting. Yeah. So you've just, you've, you've basically reduced your training and you, I think you're getting more quality out of hip at the same time.
00:49:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And it was, I actually, I must admit I found it was really good from the role when I was like, particularly when I was learning to run again, it was really good from the role. Just switching stuff from miles to kilometers, you know, rather than running like
00:49:24
Speaker
three miles you run 5k yeah it was just yeah it was just like one of these sort of silly mental tricks um that you know we all we all see through immediately and we all know that it's not quite the case but actually it just you know by converting stuff into kilometers it meant that it didn't it meant i wasn't running quite so slowly yeah
00:49:48
Speaker
like running at two miles an hour seems pretty lame basically where we're running at four k's an hour is at least like you know yeah there's at least something there but um but no so we're sort of using all these little tricks when i was in training but but yeah basically spent six months um
00:50:07
Speaker
of effectively training as I used to for hundreds, like doing very long back-to-back days at weekends and stuff, and pretty
Sponsorship Struggles and Support
00:50:17
Speaker
much reducing everything else I was doing. I was still doing a bit of time in the gym lifting weights, and I was still doing a bit of rock climbing, all of which are really beneficial. I think there's the classic issue that a lot of long-distance runners have, they don't do enough core work.
00:50:37
Speaker
which for me like climbing meant I didn't have to basically I was absolutely sort of solid on that because of sort of bouldering and lead climbing and then the gym stuff just helped me become a little bit more robust like I think for doing those the really long sort of back to back to back events
00:50:58
Speaker
you know I think having just a little bit more mass so that you're not quite as vulnerable to injuries and stuff has proven really useful for me. So yeah sort of summer of 2022 like we started out on the coast path and to be honest I
00:51:17
Speaker
I started out, and I know this sounds slightly defeatist, but I really didn't know whether I was going to be able to finish it because I didn't know whether my body would stand up to that much running anymore. As I said, my left calf in particular doesn't really work eccentrically at all.
00:51:41
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't work very well concentrically either. But what I was most worried about was basically the impact on the Achilles tendon. And again, because I've got such limited movement in that, I knew that if I'd damaged the tendon, I wasn't going to be able to rehabilitate it anyhow. So it was a really peculiar mindset going into the event that
00:52:10
Speaker
I had to, I knew it was going to be really hard, I knew it was going to be like take all I had basically, but there was also that part of me where I was very very concerned and considered around you've got to stop if this is going to transition from being like from, it is the classic thing like transition from
00:52:33
Speaker
hurting to being painful you've got to stop yeah and how do you differentiate between that i mean that's for you having done many many long ultras that must be hard to think right that's the moment where i need to stop because you're used to just pushing on yeah it was it was a really difficult one i kind of
00:52:56
Speaker
I kind of just trusted that, like you say, because I've done enough of that kind of stuff. I kind of had to just trust that I would know.
00:53:07
Speaker
But it was a really difficult one because like you've said, you also then have to be in the mindset the whole time of actually all of these little, you know, I sort of find during these really long runs that particularly for the first two weeks when your body's, you know, in shock and getting used to it and trying to get you to stop all the time.
00:53:29
Speaker
I sort of found that effectively pain just circulated through the whole of both my legs. And you never quite knew where was going to feel tight, where the next little niggle would crop up from. But you just knew there was always something. And you kind of did have to, contrary to what I've just said, you kind of did have to ignore it and run through it and trust that it would move on to somewhere else the next day.
00:53:58
Speaker
um but no there was a day i think it was day 21 and unfortunately i was actually based out of my house we were running um in between sort of Plymouth and and Salkham at the time and um
00:54:17
Speaker
I only took two in inverted commas rest days during the whole trip because I basically had to get back to work. So I had to move reasonably quickly. But even on the rest days, we were still doing like 20Ks a day instead of 40Ks a day.
00:54:33
Speaker
And I got to the rest day on day 21 and Jonah, the guy that was sort of driving the van that we were effectively using as a mobile aid station, I did about 14 kilometres of that day and actually my right Achilles tendon had started flaring up a little bit.
00:54:54
Speaker
And I was, yeah, so I phoned him and was like, mate, I'm not gonna run 20Ks today because I don't think I can and I don't think it's sensible. I'd rather like get home and try and figure this and see if there's a solution. But that was, I really thought that might've been game over at that point. Like I'd got, my right Achilles was pretty swollen and like was definitely,
00:55:23
Speaker
was definitely at the early stages of getting like tendinitis and I didn't know what to do because we were already doing like everything we should have done like we were already icing, resting, rolling, hot bath in the evening like you know everything that you're meant to do to recover basically we were we were already doing
00:55:48
Speaker
and I had a pair of like old compression socks in my like in my cupboard somewhere and I just you know I mean obviously as as most runners will know like tendonitis is caused by a sort of it's a lateral whipping of the tendon it's an irregular whipping movement which I kind of figured was probably caused because the balance on my left leg is so bad
00:56:14
Speaker
my right often has to come down like a little bit early and sometimes at a slightly peculiar angle. So the foot placement of my right foot is slightly irregular. And I kind of figured this might be causing it. So yeah, we literally got home, whapped on some compression socks and I kind of, you know, felt, okay, well, this might at least minimize that whipping motion.
00:56:42
Speaker
And yeah, thankfully it worked, because I really wasn't sure what to do had it not. But yeah, basically wore a pretty increasingly smelly pair of compression socks for the next sort of five days. And it got us through to the end, but that was a bit touch and go, that one.
00:57:05
Speaker
But that was, for me, that was the sort of first, and I would say probably the one of the most critical landmarks for me in terms of the, you know, the build up towards the South Pole, because the, I mean, the distance of it is we ended up doing 1043 kilometers. And I mean, it's about 33,000 meters again as well throughout the whole thing. And we did that over 27 days.
00:57:35
Speaker
which is actually a little bit further than the pole obviously you're not towing a super heavy pole behind you but you are you know doing some quite significant vertical gain as well and that was the the first big one which
00:57:52
Speaker
you know where from my point of view I sort of finished that and thought yeah you know what this South Pole idea like this is not just a pipe dream like you have like physically you have got this in you yeah so that would be a great feeling to think yes I can I can do that yeah the South West Coast path wasn't was an interesting it was a really really good learning experience for me just in terms of doing
00:58:16
Speaker
really long stuff and really hard stuff and I mean we were you know really were moving we were doing over 40 kilometers a day for all but two of the days pretty much and the conditions were extremely hard it was you know during the heat wave last summer
00:58:32
Speaker
so it was it was getting up to sort of 40 degrees um and you know just it was in a way it was good because you didn't think about what you were drinking you just drank whatever you could get your hands on all the time basically yeah but yeah it was it was a really useful learning experience for a lot of reasons and certainly
00:58:55
Speaker
it. Yeah, the unexpected stuff like dealing with myself post expedition was was really valuable to know as well. And like, it's, you know, one of the main reasons why with this one that's just happened, basically straight back to work on the Monday, because you've just got to get, you know, get back to it. And like,
00:59:15
Speaker
I'm lucky with the event that we've just done that actually the distances involved, the terrain involved, et cetera, compared to the coast path, it was actually pretty straightforward. Yeah, so that was Manchester to London. That was, what, 370 kilometres? Yeah, it ended up being about 350. But yeah, it was so not dissimilar at all. And actually, it was quite a nice, certainly final week.
00:59:45
Speaker
You know, got to do a lot of engagement with sponsors, a lot of engagement with schools and such along the way. Whereas the first week we'd sort of done a lot of distance and had basically concentrated on getting the back of the trip broken.
01:00:00
Speaker
um including like the the first well the only weekend which was a pretty punchy like we did 82k um over saturday and sunday and in in pretty in pretty miserable conditions if i'm being honest
01:00:17
Speaker
last weekend was I'm just thinking back it was not good weather wise was it yeah no it was I mean fortunately I've yeah fortunately my my sponsor I'm really fortunate to be sponsored by Dina fit actually who are not a particularly well-known brand in the UK but they do make like fantastic trail running kit yeah and
01:00:40
Speaker
the sort of the one of the reasons I mention it is because they're they're Gore-Tex jacket absolutely saved me okay um but it's also you know one of the things that I found going through this process is I had I had reasonably naively assumed that approaching particularly sort of outdoors brands kit manufacturers etc about the south pole
01:01:06
Speaker
I had kind of assumed it was going to be a bit of a shoo-in, to be honest.
01:01:11
Speaker
Um, you know, I'd, I'd kind of assumed particularly within the, you know, the current climate where the, you know, is obviously important to a lot of businesses, et cetera, that, you know, within the outdoors industry in particular, giving them a, you know, big flagship, Exped, et cetera, first disabled person to do, you know, to do this quite punchy thing and stuff. Yeah. I, I, I'd kind of assumed that particularly within the outdoors space, I wasn't going to struggle to find sponsors and stuff. Um.
01:01:41
Speaker
And actually the opposite couldn't have been more true. Like no one was interested at all. And it was, yeah, it was kind of, it has been, you know, one thing that I will say is that it has been slightly disheartening as a disabled runner. Yeah.
01:02:02
Speaker
And i think you know don't get me wrong i might my injury doesn't help me in the sense it's not particularly visually appealing i just look like a normal person you know i don't have a detachable leg or anything like that or jazzy set of wheels that looks good in photographs and things.
01:02:21
Speaker
So I get from a, sorry, I'm about to be very cynical, but I sort of, I get from an Instagram point of view, like why I'm not the perfect disabled ambassador for brands. But yeah, it's been interesting approaching the marketplace as a disabled runner.
01:02:48
Speaker
who just looks like a slow runner, basically. Yeah, it's been a very interesting experience doing that, certainly. And yeah, having taken quite a lot of time away from running, it did surprise me coming back and finding that. I mean, why do you think that is?
01:03:18
Speaker
Any ideas? No, not really. No, not really. I don't know. It's something which I think that, don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand that all of these brands are, you know, they already have pro teams. They're getting sponsorship requests like every day, all day. You know, I understand it's a very saturated marketplace.
01:03:49
Speaker
What I do find quite surprising is that certainly a lot of the brands that I'm familiar with from a trail running point of view and from an ultra distance point of view, disabled athletes don't feature at all. You go and look at the athlete rosters of these brands on their websites and there is no one.
01:04:17
Speaker
And that was, yeah, that is disappointing, you know, because I think there are, you know, there are disabled people in the trail running community. There are definitely athletes who have been doing stuff, whether it be at races or doing events and things like that. You know, there definitely are people within the community with disabilities that I think
01:04:44
Speaker
um you know if if these people were represented um it it would go to show that the you know the trails are more are more accessible than i suspect a lot of disabled people possibly assume yeah yeah so there's a lot we still need to do there isn't there in terms of
01:05:04
Speaker
of showing people and inspiring people like you, I guess, which is, I guess is, you know, hopefully today's podcast with you helps and somebody out there might be listening and feeling inspired. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is certainly my hope, you know, and I think I, you know, I'm sort of, I'm as guilty of it myself as anyone in the sense that I'm not specifically seeking to inspire disabled people to go trail running. You know, I think it's a great thing for anyone to do.
01:05:34
Speaker
And I will continuously pester my mates to come running with me and stuff like that. And actually the thing that's been really nice is that on the event we've just finished, on the Manchester to London event,
01:05:49
Speaker
We were able to get a lot of my corporate sponsors, like two companies in particular, Acre Capital and Specialist Risk, who are both London-based. They got about 30 of their staff out on a Thursday afternoon to come and meet me in Paddington and run the last 10Ks with me.
01:06:10
Speaker
Um, and that was, that was really awesome from my point of view. Like I, you know, as you probably imagine, and I suspect as, as most weird niche ultra runners probably do, like I do most of my training on my own. Yeah. Um, you are of course, training for a solo expedition as well, aren't you? Yeah, quite nice. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of, I'm, I'm certainly no, no stranger to my own company. Um,
01:06:36
Speaker
But running through central London, going through Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace, past the Cenotaph, down to Tower of London on the embankment, and stuff like that, with 30 people behind you, not only was that a pretty cool experience in itself,
01:07:01
Speaker
But the thing that was lovely and like, you know, people were letting me lead the way mainly because I have a map. Certainly, certainly some significantly quicker runners than me in that group. But one of the things that was so cool about it was that you could, you could hear people enjoying themselves. Yeah. Like, you know, you could just hear people having fun behind you.
01:07:24
Speaker
And I mean, firstly, I think it's really cool that those businesses let their staff go for a run that afternoon. Yeah, that's very cool. And I think the thing that I love about it, and I consider myself really lucky with the sponsors that I do currently have, because they, particularly on the corporate side of things, they get what I'm doing. They understand the value that what I'm doing brings to a corporate environment.
01:07:53
Speaker
And they absolutely understand that there are lessons from high performance sport and from sports science and general rules around performance that are just as applicable to a corporate setting as they are to an ultra marathon or to a long polar trek. And it's been really, really awesome to be able to work with some of these companies as a sports scientist.
01:08:22
Speaker
to help their staff perform better in the office. I've found that whole experience to be really awesome. But it's so nice, from my point of view, certainly, to be working with businesses that really understand the benefit that sport can bring to people in general. I think that's a really
01:08:48
Speaker
it certainly seems to be a really progressive attitude, which I really hope that more companies sort of see the light on, basically. Yeah. Yeah. I think we are seeing more and more of that, aren't we? Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing that's great about it is that, obviously, the more we see of it, the more that the, you know, the more the body of science is able to grow around it as well.
01:09:14
Speaker
And we're now seeing some really, really interesting correlations between, for instance, there was one
Final Preparations for South Pole Expedition
01:09:24
Speaker
study they did in Sweden, which I think is awesome, really, really cool, where they're looking at the VO2 max of office staff. So people who are sedentary for their job, and they're looking at a correlation between
01:09:40
Speaker
cognitive performance in the office space and VO2 max and they basically found a break point at 44 which is I would yeah roughly average for an adult but obviously average is a slightly loaded term but it's kind of you know 44 is very respectable for a you know for a part partially trained
01:10:08
Speaker
adult basically as a VO2 max. But yeah they found a breakpoint between 43 and 44 which absolutely correlated to higher cognitive performance in the office at a higher VO2 max. Wow. Yeah and I think like from my point of view as a performance scientist
01:10:29
Speaker
I love studies like that. It was a well-run study. It was a decent sample size. There was not a huge amount. This wasn't like a couple of isolated instances. I think it was over 1,200 participants in the study. And I think the thing that I love about it is you can
01:10:53
Speaker
Personally, I feel that as a performance scientist, we should be going to the CEOs of companies with data like that and saying to them, yes, it is an hour out of your day or an hour out of your company's day, but there are demonstrable benefits to allowing your staff to exercise and to facilitating your staff being healthy.
01:11:23
Speaker
And I think that body of science is reasonably new. Sports science is only 30 years old as a discipline. But I just think it's really, really cool how this body of evidence is growing and developing to really show that everyone ought to be doing cardiovascular exercise.
01:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, hopefully more people will realise these benefits and we will see more of that. So running is good for your brain. You heard it here first.
01:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So it's been absolutely fascinating chatting with you, Johnny. Just to finish up, so just tell us what the next 12 months hold for you, really, in terms of, you know, physical training and, you know, getting everything together for a huge expedition. Yeah. So I'm coming up. I'm in I'm in the US doing a week of ski testing just before Christmas. So we're trying a we're basically innovating a slightly new
01:12:26
Speaker
not as not a new setup, but it's a slightly new combination of skis bindings. So I it's one Ben Saunders tried a little while ago, but we're basically using ski mountaineering skis for the pole. So taking a set of, you know, like really very high level Dina fit, ski mountaineering skis out there, purely because they're lighter than cross country skis. Yeah.
01:12:50
Speaker
Um, so doing some, that'll be the, the, the kit nerd in me is, is extremely excited about going and doing that in, in the U S. And then I've basically got four months in polar Sweden. Um, so doing all the technical training, building on, you know, solid technical foundations. I'm doing the. Montane Lapland Arctic ultra 500 in at the start of March, um, which is yeah, 10 days, 500 kilometers.
01:13:20
Speaker
um largely self-supported the whole way there are aid stations and drops but they're pretty infrequent so that's gonna be i actually i actually think i'm more nervous about that than i am the pole like it's the the sort of the speed at which you have to travel the distances which you have to cover are pretty severe
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be a good test for you, won't it? Yeah, where you are. That'll be, yeah, that'll be a very, very interesting one. And then I've got a long three weeks solo straight after that, or with a week's break, but straight after that. So that'll be...
01:13:55
Speaker
a slightly more relaxed pace, just making sure that everything's fine and that technically everything's happy. But it's kind of doing that three weeks and trying to do it in a super sustainable manner. So you're not getting progressively more tired. You're actually able to rest properly and recover properly, despite the fact you're living on your own in the middle of the Hulu somewhere, out of the tent in your sleeping bag.
01:14:24
Speaker
um it's kind of really doing it in terms of this is this is living this is not um you know sort of not not exhausting yourself by the end of it basically yeah um and then that that is it then in terms of time on snow before i go to the south pole like that's it so it's it's a pretty like
01:14:45
Speaker
It's an intimidatingly short training block, really. But it'll be absolutely amazing. I'm so lucky that I'm able to be doing this full time as my job. I'm still at the point where you wake up in the morning and you're pinching yourself and it's like, this is kind of ridiculous that I'm able to do this full time.
01:15:12
Speaker
Yeah. And then, yeah, once that's all done, then it's literally just sort of maintaining stuff. I've got to put on a load of weight before I go down to Antarctica, both muscle and fat. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, basically spend a summer chunking up. How long are you envisaging? It will take you. How long will you be out there?
01:15:32
Speaker
So I'm hoping it'll take 40 days. I'm doing a Messner start, which is a slightly shorter, it's a slightly more technical route at the start, but it's a slightly shorter route, so it's 911 kilometers. So yeah, I think
01:15:48
Speaker
it's so weather dependent, you know, like I should be able to move reasonably swiftly over the terrain. But if, you know, if the weather comes in and you're in your tent for five days because you can't move because of the weather, there's nothing you can do about it. So I, you know, it's such a, it's a
01:16:12
Speaker
a trip that one is not likely to be able to repeat. So I'm sort of inclined to err on the side of conservatism when it comes to packing food, fuel, etc. If it takes longer than 40 days, it takes longer than 40 days. The competitor in me would like to do it as quickly as possible, but we will see. Yeah, so you'd be taking a little bit more than you need.
01:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure that I can find a place for it if I don't need it all. So where can our listeners find out, Mark? Are you on social media, Johnny? And there might be somebody out there who might be able to support you. Where can they get in touch?
01:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm largely on Instagram and LinkedIn are the two that I normally use. I'm catastrophically unoriginal on both. I am at Johnny Huntington on Instagram and I am Johnny Huntington on LinkedIn. So yeah, but no, thanks so much, Michelle. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you. It's been a joy talking to you, Johnny. Honestly, I've been engrossed. We've been chatting for over an hour, so it's been fascinating and I wish you all the very best with your challenge. You'll have to come on.
01:17:26
Speaker
nearer to the time or perhaps afterwards and tell us all about it. But I have no doubt that you'll make it a success having heard your story. So thank you. Thanks, Michelle. That's really kind of you. Cheers.