[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58vWQBmH-Q 425x344]

By John Huston

Alphonse Podgorski, a photographer at the Chicago Sun-Times, posted this video on YouTube.  Special thanks to his son who helped him with the uploading process.  

You can the video here in normal resolution or you can watch it in high resolution on this youtube page.

by Tyler Fish

Last night at 7pm I went out into the drizzle to run and walk with ski poles for two hours in the dark fall of northern Minnesota.  Physical training isn't always easy to fit into a person's full life, so sometimes you find yourself in less than ideal conditions.  As I plodded and bounced and breathed up some of the hills at the nordic ski area, retired ski jump slopes to my right and the forest to my left, I thought of one of my skiers on the ski team I coach.  What message I would tell him about training?

Some good skiers have talent and don't have to work at it very hard at it.  
The rest of the good skiers don't have a lot of natural ability, but really dedicate time and effort to be good.  
Great skiers have talent and work hard.  They work hard not only in practice, not only when it feels good to train and not only when it's convenient.  They train when they don't want to, when it hurts and when it doesn't really fit into the schedule.  
People say that you shouldn't fear your own greatness.  I think it's perfectly natural fear your own potential, because to accept your own potential for greatness is to simultaneously take on a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  Ultimately, that's how you really achieve.

Many athletes, coaches and armchair fans have strategies for training.   Admittedly, it's not always easy and sometimes downright depressing to have to go and trudge along for two hours or more.  As I ran last night I came up with a few tips that work for me.

1.    Have someone force you to get out there.  Whether it's a coach, a friend who meets you for regular training sessions, or your wife, you are accountable to someone.  They can give you the extra nudge to put your heart into action.
2.    Force yourself to complete a route or goal.  You usually don't quit within the first half an hour, so if you begin on a loop, destined to end where you began, at some point you find yourself out there with slightly more to go forward than backwards, but forwards is more interesting.  That can be the difference between an hour and a half or a two hour workout.  That extra half an hour, when added consistently, really boost the training times.
3.    Make it interesting.  Bjorn Dahlie, legendary Norwegian cross country skier, Olympic and World Cup champion, believed that training must be fun.  You have to do what is interesting; have enough options to add variety to the routine.  For example, I can run, bike, rollerski, pull a tire...just to name a few, somewhat interchangeably.  
4.    Be consistent.  Training leads to more training.  It's easier to motivate when you are successful, because you see the differences that it makes, but also because you become addicted.  Your body wants to be physically active.  For me, I can go two days without training, but after that two things happen:  Either I begin to be overwhelmed by guilt or by either physical and mental restlessness or lethargy.  The first drives me crazy and the second one disheartens me.
5.    Prioritize training in your schedule.  Everyone has a time that works best for them.  Know what that time is and schedule your life around it so that you are more likely to train.  Personally, if I don't train in the morning it gets exponentially harder to see it happening as the day wears on.

Much like a connect-the-dots page in a children's book, it's a lot easier to see the big picture if you have a lot of dots to work with (many training days) and connect them regularly. Unlike a connect-the-dots, when training you can't just sit down one day and draw a picture the day before the race and win.  You have no choice but to connect one dot at a time.  The trick is in making it as easy as possible to do so, the say can be said for connecting the dots to the North Pole, but more on that later.

Birth is an expedition.  It starts somewhere and it ends someplace entirely different.  My family now includes Sarah and me, our German Shepherd and Ethan Torbjorn Fish, newest addition.  He's here to stay.  My life is altered.

When you're an expecting father, you get a lot of advice, both solicited and unasked for, and one of the most common phrases offered to me was, “it'll change your life.”  For me those words were the beginning and the end of it.  Nothing more was said; “it'll change your life” wasn't expanded upon very much.  I didn't know what that meant, and no one seemed inclined to fill me in.  It was like everyone was saying, “get ready,” but they wouldn't explain how.  Now I think I begin to grasp it.

The appearance of Ethan changed my life from the moment I stared at him.  Traditionally newborn infants haven't been very interesting to me.  Needy, hard to communicate with, kind of clumsy and loud.  Not very predictable--all in all they share the characteristics of bad expedition partners.  So when I just stood there and stared at him for fifteen minutes in the nursery at the hospital, and thought he was incredible, I knew something had changed.  I actually thought, “so this is what they meant.”   Smiling, I laughed inside and knew that this was just the beginning.

The second most common advice was that I should get my sleep while I could.  A veteran father would say, “get ready for sleepless nights.”  This I shrugged off and dreaded at the same time.  I dismissed it because I wanted to.  I feared it because I like my regular sleep.  Digging a little deeper, in a conversation with one of my friends, he said that you just get used to operating on less sleep.  “How,” I asked?  “You just do,” was his reply.  This is a huge change for me, and I'm making it because I have no choice.  My wife and I are a team, helping each other get what we need while attending to the larger goal of a happy, healthy family.

Expeditions change your life, and the North Pole trip will undoubtedly do the same for John and I.  Similar to birth, no one can really tell us what it'll feel like, how that will occur.   There will certainly be times of less sleep!   John and I will tolerate this because we have to in order to achieve our goal.  We take all the advice we can get.  When we're out on the ice we will smile and laugh inside and out when the words find their true meaning for us.  At some point we're guaranteed to say, “this is what they meant.”

Erling Kagge, from Norway, was the first person to reach the North Pole, the South Pole and Everest.  Here's what he had to say about polar expeditions, birth and the changing life:

“Polar explorations are somewhat similar to childbirth.  During the journey and immediately afterwards I couldn't imagine doing it again.  During the thick of it, I think of the cold, the pain, the filth and the hunger (I'm talking about polar exploration here) - yet, in the fullness of time, a new dream begins to take shape.  Its easy to forget, but let's remember that the universe wasn't created to guarantee human happiness, and the nightingale doesn't sing for our amusement.  From this I conclude that I must organize the conditions of my own happiness.  Living free will never be pain-free.  That was never the idea of it”        --Erling Kagge

Life changes.  Sarah and I chose to guide this process by having a son.  For me and John, we choose to throw in a journey to the North Pole.  The journey will change us.  When we finish the expedition, John and I will not be the same people we were when we started.

by John Huston

Tyler and I talk about the importance mental training all the time.  So what exactly is it?

Mental training is getting our minds ready for all aspects of the expedition.

How we respond to the challenges of the expedition will be the difference between success and failure.

Our mental training is a slow process that takes place over years and months.  A lot of the mental training comes from our past expedition experience.  This experience provides a critical foundation to build upon.

During the summer and fall we use several different methods to prepare our brains for the challenge ahead.

Here's a list of a few of the methods of mental training we commonly use.  We'll talk about these and other topics in more detail down in the future.

1.  Positive Visualization:  Imagining, in detail, situations that may happen on the expedition.  We then visualize the necessary steps to success.  In many ways this focused thinking increases our base of experience.  It is not the same as being on the expedition but in many ways it can be close and thus improve performance when similar situations occur.  

2.  Critical Self-Assessment:  We constantly look at our weaknesses.  We then educate ourselves through research or seeking advice.  Staying humble is essential to many aspects of the expeditionary experience, perhaps most importantly in the ability to strive to improve.

3.  Optimism:  Belief in positive possibilities.  A lot of this training happens the daily existence of working to fund and grow the expedition project.  At times, setbacks occur or goals can seem far away, but we believe strongly that if we keep plugging forward and be true to who we are, then all will work out on in end.  The path is not always known, but in many ways that is the fun part.  Optimism in our minds is not just an idea, but the hard work that makes turns an idea into action.

4.   Not Thinking (Don't Worry too Much):  In many ways thinking about unknowns and daunting challenges is a lot more difficult than experience the challenge itself.  Positive action breeds more positive action.  We don't always know exactly how we are going to get there, but we know that we will get there.  We don't know how we will feel or what we will think in the future.  The ability to let go and forget yourself, in ways can be a key to enjoying expeditions.

5.  Reading and Asking Questions:  We are fascinated by how other individuals, not just polar explorers, undertake challenges.  Although the problem itself be very different from our challenges, successful mental approaches to challenge can be universal.  We love studying this topic and hope to use our expedition as a similar resource for others.

by John Huston

Today is a special day!  The North Pole '09 family grew by a few pounds.  A few minutes after 2:15pm CST today, Tyler Fish and his wife Sarah Lakosky welcomed their first child, a baby boy into the world.  Everyone is happy and healthy. 

Tyler and I are extremely close with our families.  Their support and lifelong inspiration have had an immeasurable influence on our lives and the pursuit of our dreams.  In so many ways this expedition project is an extension of those relationships and values. 

As Tyler and I strive to tell the story of this expedition, with a focus on our mental experience, we will discuss more about the origins of each other's character and about our families.  

Long ski expeditions are more than just plodding over ice surfaces hour after hour and day after day, they are what each person imagines and experiences in their own minds.  It is this experience that we hope to share with your in the coming months.  For us it's safe to say, that in the strange, zone-like mental existence of long distance ski expeditions, few topics will cross our minds more than thoughts and feelings for our families.

More information on Tyler and Sarah's new baby coming soon