All the gear but any idea?

A New Sponsor

Hi - I am delighted to announce that I have been sponsored by Close Asset Management.  Close have been a great help in supporting me to get to the North Pole and have shown great interest in the endeavour.  Many thanks to all at Close for all your assistance!

About Close Asset Management Limited
Close Asset Management Limited is a successful and reputable manager which has looked after client portfolios for the past 40 years, providing core investment solutions.


We employ over 60 investment managers, analysts and dealers. Our investment managers have an average of 17 years experience of portfolio management.


We currently look after 22,000 clients with £7.6 billion of assets under management*.
Winner of the 2008 and 2009 What Investment Readership Award for 'Best Discretionary Wealth Manager'. Shortlisted for the 2010 Investor Chronicle/FT Awards for 'Best Wealth Manager for Investments' and 'Best Wealth Manager for Alternative Investments'.

Back on line - updates a plenty

As if training and final preparations for the North Pole is not enough, we have also just moved house!  After a huge delay we are back in the present era of electronic communication and have BROADBAND WORKING!

I have just over one week to go.  After this date I will be handing over the reigns of blog updates to my wife! Technology has been sorted out by my team mate Jo, and her fantastic sponsors,  Pure Technology. We will be able to send updates and photos on a daily basis and my wife is acting as PR hub from the UK HQ and will update as well as send out all of the updates to sponsors.  You can expect all the updates to be more regular and much more amusing than mine! Her sense of humour is legendary - it has to be to be married to me!

A couple of weeks ago we all met in a warehouse near Bristol to do the final packing and to ensure the baggage will come in less than the airline allowance.  It did, just.  I also received my Baffin boots which are well insulated and waterproof and are absolutely HUGE! I have a size 11 foot but with all the padding and insulation - they are half a metre long! I also got my hands on the MSR stoves which are the most important piece of kit that we will have (along with the tent). The stoves are used for about 4 hours in every 24 hour period to melt snow and ice into water to make hot drinks and to rehydrate the dried food.  I have to become an expert at using and maintaining them.  It is a bit of an art as the flames can go up to about 2 feet if you are not careful! 

I have plenty more updates including - NEW SPONSOR, Charity Quiz, final training etc etc and will be online again this evening!

Walk2work.MOV

Now on accessible Youtube!

My walk to work!

Its taken days to get this on the blog.  This is my walk to work which I do twice a week.  Starting at about 5.00am it takes almost 4 hours to do the 12.6 miles to the office.  Twickenham to Blackfriars in London.  Most exciting!

Tense lats and a steady head!

I have now enlisted the help of a personal trainer - Stu.  With 12 weeks to go,  I want to concentrate on the main areas that I need help on.  The problem was that without the input of an expert,  I had no idea where I was lacking! We have had one session so far which was more of a fitness test (although I have no idea if I passed!) and will be having two sessions per week until the off.  I have been introduced to kettle bells, superman and parts of my own body that I swear have been hibernating for the last 37 years. My lats are tense apparently but the good news is my head does not flop about when running.  I am no biologist but surely that is because it is attached to my neck?

This is in addition to my normal regime of excercise, so to my surprise, Stu was standing in the reception of my gym (Pools in the Park) when I arrived this moring at 6.30 after running from home with my work clobber on my back. I had already done my cardio for the day (the run) so I am still surprised that he managed to pursuade me to join the spinning class he was hosting - and even more surprised that I then did a twenty minute session of "Abs" afterwards.  I now feel it, but also feel pretty good.

This week will also see the start of me walking to work.  This may sound simple but work is 12 miles away so I will be leaving home at 5.00am twice a week. Why on earth did I sign up for this thing!!!! I will update you with further progress as and when.  I have recently bought a digital video camera so you may even get some action shots.

Stu has kindly donated a proportion of my sessions as sponsorship - so welcome to the list of Sponsors Stu and see you tomorrow at 6.30am again!

A NEW SPONSOR

I am very pleased to introduce Hamilton Rentals as my latest sponsor.  Hamilton provide IT hardware rental and hire for the corporate and consumer market.  They have kind enough to provide me with sponsorship and assistance in PR in their market place. 

Welcome on board Hamilton Rentals and thank you very much!

I am still looking for sponsors and in return I will wear logo's during the race, create targeted press releases, talk at corporate events and do what ever it takes!