There are a lot of amazing explorers in this world. I met a bunch of them in Antarctica. I felt like a midget amongst giants when I would sit down with seven submitters and amazing mountaineer and polar adventurers.
However there are three great adventurers that were the inspiration for my expedition.
Eric Larsen
In December 2012, just as I was getting into snow biking Eric started his expedition to bike to the South Pole. I followed his expedition. In 8 days he traveled 1/4 of the way to the South Pole. It took me 16 days to cover the same distance.
I would never have even thought about biking to the South Pole if I hadn't heard of Eric's expedition. I studied his blog to learn as much as I could about biking to the South Pole. While I was on my expedition I would often remember things I had read in his blog, and think that now I understood what he was talking about. Eric is a true inspiration and his expedition convinced me that biking to the South Pole was possible.
Hannah McKeand
Hannah use to hold the record for the fastest solo expedition to the South Pole. I read her blog and learned a lot about polar expeditions from it. I was very honored to have her bring me food when I ran out one day before I reached the pole.
Aaron Linsdau
Aaron set the record for the most days to get to the South Pole. He took 81 days to get to the pole. When most people would have given up he continued on. I felt I needed to train myself mentally to be prepared to continue on no matter what. This was as important, or maybe more important than any physical training I could do. I wanted to have the perseverance of Aaron. I had to draw on that mental preparation in order to finish
There are many great explorers but those three are the ones that inspired me the most as I biked to the South Pole. Thanks Eric, Hannah, and Aaron!
