True Inspiration from an old mate

I had a mate from school emailed me today saying he'd very sadly lost his Dad to cancer on Monday and it brought back to me why I'm doing this.

Losing a loved one or a family member to cancer is horrific. The pain and emptiness is intense and never leaves you completely. It took me a long time to get over the initial shock of losing my Dad, although the deep pain will never leave me. I found strength in being grateful for the fact he'd been my Dad, that I'd had the pleasure to know him as my best mate as well as my Dad. That said, grief affects everyone differently and to varying degrees. I was in the depths of despair for a long time and it took something special in my life to pull me out of it. Being grateful for the time I was lucky enough to have shared with him has been critical to making sure he didn't die in vain.

My mate's wounds are still fresh and I feel for him immensely. I just hope he can find the strength to stay positive and focus on the good things that life offers. Death is a part of life. We only get one crack at it and it's short relative to the history of time.

This is the reason I'm going on this expedition: I want to make sure my Dad didn't die in vain and that I remember him in making this attempt on the North Pole to raise much needed funds for Macmillan. If, on one special day, a son or daughter I may never have met, don't lose their father too early to cancer because of what I've done, my journey will be a victory. You can be part of that dream by donating to my cause because we need financial support to continue Macmillan's amazing work.

So please give all you can by clicking here or on the tracker at the side of the page.

Together we can make that one very special day day happen.

ITV News footage of True North expedition

I've now got my hands on the ITV News footage that I couldn't work out how to link from youtube, so da da da...here it is! Thanks once again to Mr Davy Shenton from Shenton Creative for his kind services editing the footage, and to ITV News for supporting the expedition. It's all sincerely appreciated.



We're about to hit the £3500 mark for Macmillan sponsorship and have a few surprises up me sleve for attracting much more. If you are reading this, please send the story on to your friends, family, contacts, customers and suppliers (if you have them!!) - anyone who you think will be inspired enough to donate. All we need to do is get one pound from 50,000 people and we're there! Please help! I'll be eternally grateful. And, enjoy the footage!

TV, radio and press pick up story

Due to a brilliant contribution by PR firm Gardiner Richardson the True North expedition has been featured heavily in the North East media this week. You can check out recent ITV News footage on youtube by clicking here.

A massive and sincere thanks goes to Kathernie Shenton specifically for doing the hard yards and to the Gardiner Richardson team for supporting True North by running the campaign for me. We've raised the profile massively so its been a resounding success.

Training update

Christ! This is getting tough. My 7am gym sessions with my trainer Ollie Reeve have stepped up in intensity and are really challenging now. They only last an hour but after two harsh beastings on consecutive mornings, I'm flagging. I had to sit down for half an hour this morning just to stop sweating before I could go to work accompanied by at least a shred of dignity.

Ollie's the man who has devised my training programme, contrary to some unfortunate misinformation in the recent press and TV coverage (which was probably my fault - sorry mate.) This guy has gone to extreme lengths researching the best, most effective, training methods to ensure I'm in prime condition when I leave. He's an unrelenting taskmaster. Which is complimentary compared to what I called him this morning after he lied to make me work harder. He said I was within a whisker of nailing my best time ever for a circuit. Somehow, I managed to convince my brain I could do it, to which my body responded and I beat my time. By about 10 seconds, which was brilliant. Then it dawned on me that Ollie had lied to me. The bastard! But what a sense of achievement I got from it along with the realisation that I had more in the tank.

It's things like this I need help with. I need to be pushed to the extremes of physical exhaustion so I know when I'm on the ice, feeling like I want to quit, that deep down within the pits of my soul I've still got fuel reserves to call upon. When your body starts burning fat you know about it because you reach exhaustion pretty quickly. I'm due to lose up to 21lbs throughout the trip so I need to get used to working through the fatigue and the pain. I just keep telling myself I knew this wasn't going to be easy. My concern is I have no idea just how tough it's going to be.

Tyne North Training sponsor expedition

Tyne North Training (TNT) have agreed a sponsorship deal with me for the trip. This is a fantastic joint opportunity to help get me to the North Pole. As a former TNT apprentice engineer I'll be acting as an ambassador for the organisation to motivate and inspire other ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things.

My Dad, Ron Mitten, sat on the TNT Executive Board, so I'm over the moon that they have decided to support the cause by becoming my main sponsor. I'm sure Ronnie will be toasting them with a glass of single malt from above!

I still need to raise a significant sum to fund the trip, aside from the £50,000 target that needs to go to Macmillan - not to subside the trip - so if anyone reading this blog is interesting in becoming a corporate sponsor, please contact me.

It looks like we have significant media interest in the expedition. We've already generated coverage in The Evening Chronicle and on bdaily. Click here to read the arrticle.

Well done Brian for South Pole success

Brian Douds has been one of my main inspirations in attmpting this challenge. Brian approached me to sponsor his succesful North Pole attempt in 2007, making me believe that something like this was possible.

He recently returned from his successful South Pole expedition making him one of the youngest Britons ever to reach both Poles. This is no small achievement and is further inspiration to me that this kind of thing is actually possible.

Read about Brian's extraordinary achievement by clicking here.

Knowing how hard I'm working to be both mentally and physically capable of hauling a sled across the frozen ocean, I have a serious amount of respect for what Brian has achieved and take my hat off to him.

Well done to Brian. I hope, come the end of April, I can say I've achieved half as much as he has.

Alpine training and the odd glass of wine

The week in Alpe D'Huez has been great. Lots of hard skiing followed by the odd glass of wine. That said, yesterday I taught myself to (inefficiently) cross country ski. My first outing was a success and I covered about 7- or 8-km in total and climbed about 1000ft in one hour-long blast after lunch, I'm glad to say without barfing!

It's safe to say I have developed a new found respect for cross country skiers. This is hard graft, especially climbing. Surprisingly, going downhill is much tougher because you only have the front of your foot strapped to the ski and no stiff boots preventing you from falling backwards. So I had some pretty spectacular comedy falls, unfortunately these occurred where loads of people were watching and subsequently pissed themselves laughing at me.