Richard Lawton has a hunger for adventure. Not content with trekking in wildernesses as far apart as Nepal and South America, he’s recently challenged himself to become an ultra runner, running up to 100 miles in one go. So what drives a man to do such a thing?
Sports and endurance
‘I want to see how far I can go’
Ultra runner Richard Lawton
Thursday, 29th July 2010
Supercar, 1905 style
Restoring a record breaker
Thursday, 6th May 2010
Here’s a story of crazy ambition: restoring an ancient car when all that’s really left is its engine, and then attempting to break the speed record that the car itself set a hundred years ago. And just look at the car in question! It’s a Darracq, a strange and oddly beautiful monster with a vast engine of 25.4 litres.
Bad news from the far north
Ben Saunders trek runs into trouble
Wednesday, 31st March 2010
Afraid there’s been some bad news from the Arctic. A few days ago, far out on the ice, Ben discovered that most of his food had been contaminated by fuel after a canister cracked following some particularly intense pounding. Losing that much food is catastrophic for an expedition that relies on being very fast and very light. So he returned to base to consider his options.
So here, in his own words, is what Ben has told us he’s decided to do, and why. We’re incredibly disappointed for Ben and we really feel for him, but we’ll certainly continue to support him in his expedition next year. Read full article »
World record polar trek begins
Ben Saunders hits the ice
Tuesday, 23rd March 2010
Ben on the edge of the Arctic Ocean – 22 March 2010
On 22 March Ben Saunders stepped off Cape Discovery on the northern Canadian coast and onto the treacherous, ever-shifting plates of ice that form the surface of the Arctic Ocean. His goal is to break the world speed record for the fastest man to walk to the North Pole. He’s doing it all alone.
Ben Saunders gets go ahead
North Pole Speed Record bid for 2010
Thursday, 25th February 2010
We have just heard that Ben Saunders, who we featured on this site recently, has had the go-ahead to make his attempt to break the North Pole Speed Record.
He’s attempting to be the fastest human to reach the pole solo and unsupported. That means facing some extraordinary challenges and walking over an awful lot of ice.
We’re very pleased that he’ll be wearing Sunspel long johns and tops when he makes his record-breaking attempt.
We’ll be keeping track of Ben’s progress here as the story develops.
Ben Saunders
Polar explorer who takes Sunspel with him
Wednesday, 15th July 2009
When you’re skiing alone, without a single soul within five million square miles, and nothing but a flat white horizon ahead, you have a lot of time to think about your identity – if only to ponder, when things get really tough, what in God’s name am I doing here?
So who, or more specifically, what, does Ben Saunders think he is? To be honest, he’s not quite sure how to describe himself. ‘Adventurer’ has rather too many dodgy connotations. But ‘explorer’, especially ‘polar explorer’, seems to set his teeth on edge.
‘Returning to the city after months on the ice is like watching TV with the volume up too far’
It’s all down to Saunders’ relationship with his celebrated antecedents. He has clearly studied them closely: he knows just about everything about past polar expeditions: right down to who financed Captain Scott, or how many dogs Scott’s arch Norwegian rival, Amundsen, took when he won the race to the Pole in 1912 (for the record, he began with 52, ended with 16 and many of the casualties ended up on the dinner menu).