We only went and did it!

I know you had a heads up while I was away but I just wanted to confirm that we successfully reached the Magnetic North Pole and played our seven-a-side rugby match the following day, hopefully setting a Guinness World Record in the process and raising up to £300,000 for Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby.

We were blessed with good weather for a number of the trek days but is wasn’t all fun and banter. Winds rose significantly during the trek plunging temperatures as low as -30C, making it very hard to pull a 60kg sledge uphill all day over a peninsula on the penultimate day. 

Most nights we collapsed into our tents shattered and hoped we would be responsive enough should a local polar bear decide to come and pay us a visit during the night! 

There were some cracking days of weather too and our guides said they haven’t seen so many windless, sunny days at that time of year before. Thankfully one of those days was match day and our supporter plane had no problems landing with the equipment, match referee and additional players to make up our numbers for the game.

Team Tim came out eventual winners, defeating Team Ollie 17-14, in what was a hard fought match. Being on the winning side in a record breaking rugby match is a great feeling but I hasten to add that we went as a squad and the result was not the focal point, our achievement in getting there in the first place was and I thank everyone who helped make that possible. The such a great bunch of guys on the expedition and we'll be rembered as one in what we acheived.

 

I had plenty of time to reflect on our success as I was one of 5 remaining challengers stranded at the North Pole for almost 3 days as weather halted any air support to come in and pick us up with our remaining guides. Sitting huddled in a tent for so long with Arctic winds howling outside lends itself to some interesting variations on parlour games being played. Stories for the pub perhaps!

Thank you for all your support and for anyone still wishing to donate to the children’s charity you can do so securely online via www.justgiving.com/arctic-rugby-2015 .

Media interest has rocketed, having appeared on ITV News, SkySports1 and in various papers over the last few days, including today's Metro. Sky Sports’ World Rugby has been filming our progress and Monday sees us appearing live on BT Sports Rugby Tonight (8pm) 

For your interest and for those asking, Laura says the beard goes tomorrow and who am I to agrue! What fantastic support she has given me these last 18 months and Isobel, Amelia and Harry were also with me in spirit over the three weeks. Cloudy eye moments on being reunited at Heathrow!

Tune in to BBC South East on Thursday around 6.30pm for my Arctic Rugby appearance!

Best wishes

A princess, a knight, heroes, heroines & a wizarding mum...

A princess, a knight, heroes, heroines and a wizarding mum. It isn't fantasy! Here's how they've been supporting our #arcticchallenge

I thought today would be an appropriate moment, ahead of the weekend's 6 Nations clashes, to give you an update on fundraising and events since January as support and media coverage for the Arctic Rugby Challenge in aid of Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby, has snowballed.

It is now just 6 ½ weeks before I leave for the Magnetic North Pole, in our bid to trek 100 miles across the Arctic Circle to play the most northerly rugby match in history.

85% of my target has been reached so thank you to all of those who have made a donation so far but still over £7,000 to go! If you would like to contribute please use the following link, all donations go directly to Wooden Spoon.

www.justgiving.com/arctic-rugby-2015

There have been a number of fundraising campaigns, the most notable being a drinks reception with our Patron, HRH the Princess Royal, who presented each Challenger with a pitch flag ahead of the trek. The event also marked the start of our ‘Woolly Bobble Hat’ campaign on Twitter, and one Scottish team member has received a £5,000 donation from children’s author J K Rowling! Amazing!!!

Celebrities & Twitter followers were asked to post a selfie wearing the Bobble Hat using #ArcticChallenge in support for Wooden Spoon and the Arctic Rugby Challenge, with funds going to help change the lives of disadvantaged children. We’ve had a great response and here are some of the best so far…

Can you name them all? Answers below:

123

45

6 7

89 10

11 12 

1314

15 16 

1718 

19
20

Thank you again for all of your support.

1. Legend - Sir Ranulph Fiennes

2. Laura Trott – Double Olympic Cycling Gold Medallist & 5 x World Champion

3. Truffle – my dog, hoping to be part of my sled team but we're pulling our own sleds!

4. Dylan Hartley - England

5. Andy Goode – Wasps Fly Half

6. Phil Vickery OBE, BBC Breakfast's Mike Bushell & Ollie Phillips

7. Nathan Hines – Scotland

8. Alex Cuthbert - Wales

9. Chemmy Alcott - 4 x Olympian and alround gem

10. Yours truly

11. Tim Stimpson, Hugh Vivian & yours truly

12. Danny Cipriani - England & Sale Sharks

13. Ben Kay OBE - 2003 RWC Winner

14. Georgie Bingham – TalkSport

15. Michael Owen - Ex-England & Liverpool footballing legend

16. Chris Robshaw, Tom & Ben Youngs - England

17. Moma Foods - The Best Breakfast!

18-20. The reason we are all doing this! 

www.justgiving.com/arctic-rugby-2015

Arctic Rugby Boot Camp Weekend

                                          Merthyr Mawr Madness - what a weekend!

In my last post, 'stop the ride, I want to get off', I was dreading the forthcoming fitness 'wake up call' weekend in Wales so much that it was causing me restless nights. As it turns out, my fear of impending doom, hardship and physical and mental exhaustion was completely underestimated and only the tip of the iceberg! I was almost on my knees by the end of the first morning, annihilated, in real danger of passing out before summating the top of Europe's highest sand hill (the Big Dipper) a gruelling fourth time. Wondering what on earth I had let myself in for, I was in no doubt of how much work I still had to do to get this flabby 40 year old body prepared for the onerous and demanding conditions of the North Pole. I was going to have to get tough and no matter how much I knew it would hurt, the sand dunes of Merthyr Mawr looked to be the perfect place to do it.

The weekend started well enough. An invitation on Friday afternoon to join Wooden Spoon Rugby Ambassador, Alex Cuthbert on a guided tour of the newly built, and almost completed, Noah's Ark Children's Hospital, just outside Cardiff Royal Infirmary, where Wooden Spoon are funding Sensory Rooms for the children.

 

 I had the pleasure of giving an interview to Heart FM while our filmographers took the opportunity to capture on camera our thoughts and trepidation on the weekend ahead. 



Friday night was simple and there may have been beer involved.

Saturday morning started early with a live interview on @BBCSussex while the stormy winds and driving rain drenched the Welsh countryside outside. I avoided the full English, opting in favour of some porridge followed by a couple of poached eggs. This had nothing to do with them being excellent slow release energy foods but if I was going to be throwing up in an hour or so during training I wanted soft food coming back up. It's all in the preparation 😉 .

Arctic Challangers then met in the ruins of Ogmore castle, just south of Bridgend, where we pitched the tents we'd be staying in that night and using on our expedition.

Taking our brief from Jock Wishart and his team, Tim Stimpson rekindled old rugby days with a warm up and then fired up deeply suppressed memories of ice baths by leading us into the freezing river to purge our calves 'good morning and welcome' I thought.

 

 You didn't want to put a foot wrong off  the already submerged stepping stones!

A twenty minute yomp with kit later and we stood at the foot of the Big Dipper, nervous laughter echoing through the group suggesting that I wasn't the only one to opt for eggs and porridge that morning. Harnessed together in groups of interchangeable fours we would make four runs to the summit of this sand hill Goliath, round the flag and then open the legs and charge back down. It is hard to put into context but if you imagine being told to run up the fire escape of a twenty storey building, while all the time the steps are falling away under your feet, then you may get the idea.
Runs 1-3 were hard enough, with most groups making it 50-60% of the way up before resorting to dogged trudging higher and higher, but 25 metres from the top of my final run everything started to go starry in front of my eyes. Drawing close to Vmax with every breath I took, my face a snarled contortion of determination I wondered if I was going to pass out. Still the legs lumbered on, 10 metres now. Tim was gasping too and Fergus, the youngest of our three, was empathetic in showing signs of feeling the pain for his elderly teammates. If I could just get my hand on that marker then I could cope with the run down. 5m, getting dizzy now, this was going to be close as I lurched a little from side to side.
I don't remember the last few metres as I am pretty sure my eyes were shut (or clouded over) but I do recall the sand flattening out and a small tug to my left as the team turned to round the flag. Summit reached it was just a case of a few moments of walking recovery before leaning back and letting fly back down. Surprisingly this was an enjoyable experience. Still having to gasp in air but the steep gradient does all the work for you and we descended with the enthusiasm of children bounding down a hill towards an approaching ice cream van, even sprinting the last few metres over the line.

Not just a little relieved I wrapped up warm and felt the satisfaction of achieving something I'd doubted at times was possible. It was a great feeling, job done, smiles all round.

We lunched and rehydrated before setting off on a navigation exercise, joining up with Tim and Paddy. The three of us set out on foot for 12km of hiking and GPS training. The pub beckoned at the end, a good fire roaring on arrival and there may have been some more beer involved.

 

Sunday saw the arrival of the film crews, Ollie Philips, a grumpy farmer and several hangovers. We would be pulling our pulks across the sand dune network, locating six waypoints while negotiating streams, obstacles and, for those brave enough, a double river crossing in near full flood.

The weekend left me exhausted but exhilarated at the same time. A greater understanding of the equipment and technology had buoyed my confidence and I had a real understanding of the task ahead, what I was already capable of and the merit and skills of my teammates.

In my perpetration I would need to become gym bunny, hill walker, psychologist and endurance athlete all rolled into one, and I left Ogmore relishing the thought. Roll on 15th April.

http://www.justgiving.com/ARCTIC-RUGBY-2015

Stop the ride, I want to get off!

#ARCTICRUGBYDADDY goes to Wales

'Stop the ride, I want to get off!'

   It's late on Thursday evening, all packed and ready for our Arctic Rugby Challenge away weekend in Wales. I should be safely tucked up in bed but I can't drift off. Four solitary words were just sent to me by text; 'It's the Big Dipper', and I'm losing sleep over it.

   Any kid or young-at-heart adult would conjure up a wonderful image of fun fairs, roller coasters and amusement parks but not me, this was the news I was dreading. The 'Big Dipper' is the most challenging and soul destroying beast of a sand dune, set in a myriad of Merthyr Mawr sand hills, the highest in Europe. I will stand at the foot of a giant Goliath and be expected to conquer it...four times. I feel a little dizzy at the thought and close my eyes to push the image from my mind. Stop the ride, I want to get off!

Follow our progress this weekend on Twitter with #arcticchallenge and for details of our project visit to Noah's Ark Children's Hospital with Alex Cuthbert.

"Not pretty, but committed."

Meet Team Tim

In Tim's own words, 'Not pretty, but committed'

Left to Right: James Harding, Ben Laundon, Tim Stimpson, Stephen Henry& Andrew Walker

I'd like to think that Tim is talking about our dedication and not our state of mental health, although signing up to play rugby at the North Pole we must be slightly higher up the barmy scale than most!

Tim Stimpson – Former British and Irish Lion, England and Leicester Tigers full back
James Harding – Executive Director at Quilter Cheviot and Wooden Spoon Ambassador
Stephen Henry – Operates in the investment banking industry
Andrew Walker – Associate Solicitor at Eversheds LLP.
Ben Laundon – President Elect of the Rotary Club of Croydon, South.

If you asked me whether I could ask for a better team around me then I'd be hard pushed to think of many more dedicated fellows to be taking to the ice-hard rugby pitch with. That's why I'm backing #TeamTim when we take on #TeamOllie in our Guinness World Record setting rugby match.

Meet Team Ollie

(or 'The Runners Up' as I like to think of them)

Ollie Phillips

David Mercer

Paul 'Jordy' Jordan

Fergus Davidson

Steven Turnbull

Ollie Phillips – Former England 7’s and Gloucester winger
David Mercer – CEO of LMAX Exchange
Paul Jordan – EMEAR Regional Manager at Cisco
Steven Turnbull – General Manager for Everything4Rugby
Fergus Davidson – Works for a London Hedge Fund

And who is going to keep this rabble in check? Well...

Meet The Ref

Lee Mears

Lee Mears - Former England and British & Irish Lions player Lee Mears will also join the squad at the Pole as match referee. He is also Wooden Spoon Ambassador of Golf.

For those of you with a keen eye you will see that there are only 5 in each squad and this is because we will be joined at the North Pole by other players from the Supporters Squad. They fly out directly rather than making the harrowing 100 mile trek to the pole first. Still, I'm sure we won't hold that against them too much in the first tackle....

If you would like to support our fundraising target for Wooden Spoon, the children's charity of rugby, please click on James's Justgiving Page or TEXT 'ARCT50 £10' to 70070 to dontate £10 via Virgin's JustTextGiving.