Listening to Ranulph Fiennes

My mum getting her book signed

The evening opened with Ranulph telling us about the seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. The story of how this challenge came about was as intriguing as the challenge itself. He told us that the New York Marathon Club had been planning to be the first to achieve this feat and had been planning to take Dr. Mike Stroud, who resides in Southampton, with them for medical support. They realised they would need a jumbo jet to get them around in the time limits but they couldn't afford one and so they started to explore options that may be available on scheduled airlines. There were a few US based airlines that were willing partners but their schedules just didn't fit and so six years later they were no further forward. By now it was 2003.

In the meantime Ranulph was planning his own trip to run on each continent over a three month period and he rang Mike to ask him to run with him. Mike had a problem. He had already used more than he should have of his annual leave and so his employers, the NHS told him he could only have seven days and so the two started to look at how they could do seven marathons in seven days on seven continents.

They had more joy than the Americans because good old British Airways could get them around to all the places on time as long as they could complete every marathon in 4 hours and 30 minutes and take no more than one hour to get through security and checked onto each flight. All of the flights were the regular scheduled ones. They also told them that they wouldn't be able to do the runs in the order that they wanted. They had hoped to do the toughest marathon last but the airline schedule meant that it had to go in the middle.

However, these turned out to be the least of their problems. They were due to set off in October and in June Ranulph had a massive heart attack. I loved the way he told us how his wife told him that he would now have to cancel or postpone his marathon plans and that he agreed... as he always did (!) Mike got in touch with the sponsors to tell them that the trip was off but found out that Landrover had already paid out a massive amount of money for things such as getting the roads closed for their run in Santiago and that this budget wouldn't be available again. The run was back on again!

The challenge itself was peppered with problems. Bad weather in Antarctica meant that they had to change plans and do this run on the Falklands. A sponsor organised for a jet to pick them up and take them there but, as they flew towards their destination, they noticed an RAF fighter plane had joined them and they faced the wrath of the Army General when they landed who initially denied them permission to do the run....until he realised that they had the BBC and The Times with them! This was the second of their marathons and Ranulph said that things gradually got worse after that!

It was a great evening and we all really enjoyed listening to him but I am in a very privileved position when it comes to listening to people who have done incredible things. I have interviewed Blind Dave a couple of times. He was the first blind person to do seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. I also enjoyed telling my family, as we drove home, that only that day I had interviewed John Dawson, who at the age of 73 completed 10 marathons in 10 days only last week. I've got a few more appointments in my diary to talk to incredible people in the very near future. I'm starting to think about setting myself a challenge for the future too. If you can't beat em, join em!