A Little Something to Keep You Going

A Valentine's Day poem:

Skinned knees are red
Bruised toenails are blue
Indoor soccer sucks
Outdoor soccer, I miss you.

Not every soccer game is great. Not every run is perfect. Sometimes the elements will get you down, or maybe it will be an injury, or maybe it will be a guy with very long legs who injures you, but in any case, some days you need a little time for a tendon to heal or for your skin to stop bleeding and oozing, or for your head to clear.

And sometimes what you need is a story of incredible endurance to make you stop being squeamish and try again (after you've cleaned up and bandaged the flesh wounds, of course).

That story happens to be Ben Saunders and Tarka L'Herpiniere, polar explorers extraordinaire. Polar explorer, who even does that any more? Well, these guys. Saunders has done a variety of expeditions like ski across the North Pole (over seasonal ice, because yes I know the North Pole is in the Arctic Ocean and that the Arctic ice is melting at an alarming pace, but NatGeo has that story covered pretty well). Ben Saunders most recently traversed from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole, turned around, and came back. Why is this monumental? Because no one else has done it before using human power, and the last guys who tried it over 100 years ago all died in the attempt.

400-lb sledges, non-stop daylight, dangerous crevasses hidden under a layer of snow, nearly starving, and yet Ben Saunders and Tarka L'Herpiniere made it, completing the "Scott Expedition" (named after the doomed British team from 1910-1913) in 1800 miles and 105 days.

Yes, that's one heck of a trek. And somehow they managed to blog during their whole journey.

Now who's unmotivated to move and write? Yikes.