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Solitary trekker, to the South Pole

Aislinn Simpson

Briton completes 1,100 km marathon in record time

LONDON: She survived on a diet of fudge, chocolate and Kendal mint cake, and still managed to lose three stone. But Hannah McKeand was pulling a sledge weighing up to 100 kg across the snow, in bitterly cold conditions in an effort that put her in the history books as the fastest person to trek alone and unsupported to the geographic South Pole.

On Friday, the 33-year-old Briton described how she skied into the record books by completing the 1,100 km marathon from the edge of Antarctica in 39 days, nine hours and 33 minutes, beating by about two days the previous record, held by the U.K.'s Fiona Thornewill.

Speaking to the Press Association by satellite phone, she said: "I have been here before and loved the place. I wanted to visit and spend more time here. The record was never my primary goal for the expedition, but to have set it is incredible — the icing on the cake."

She said the expedition was "gruelling and relentless" but she was "just stoked" to have arrived at the Amundsen-Scott Research Station that marks the Pole at 8.33 p.m. GMT on Thursday, to be greeted by friends. "I thought it would be a challenge for a social person like me to do the expedition alone, and being alone was not the hardest thing — I was busy focusing on what I had to do," said Ms. McKeand, of Newbury, Berkshire. "It is a long enough period that sometimes you can't see the end but you just have to be resilient and keep pushing on."

During the trek, she entertained herself by listening to Stephen Fry and Harry Potter on her iPod, until it broke. She then spurred herself on by singing Christmas carols. Pulling her sledge on the uphill route burned up to 8,000 calories a day and she lost 20 kg on her diet of chocolate, fudge, halva, dried fruit and nuts, salami, Kendal mint cake and pork scratchings.

"I'm really looking forward to washing myself and my clothes," she said.

Previously a marketing manager and head of touring for a Newbury's Watermill Theatre, she became a full-time adventurer two years ago. She has conquered the deserts of north Africa, visited isolated villages in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountain range and competed in the 2005 Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Her South Pole expedition was undertaken in homage to her friend Jill Fraser, artistic and executive director of the Watermill Theatre, who died this year of breast cancer. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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Solitary trekker, to the South Pole

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