I’ve always thought that Antarctica will be the most physically difficult expedition of all our 7 10DL expeditions. Until now I never had a structured way of thinking about how to measure “difficulty”. From a energy expenditure perspective, Antarctica will be the hardest. Here’s how I performed my calculations. 

1. The first step is to breakdown the activities of 10DL. The 10 Degrees Latitude is an expedition series that consists of 5 sports. Those being:

• Cycling 
• Open water swimming
• Kite assisted skiing cross country
• Hiking cross country
• Kayaking

2. The second step is to assume that calorie count is a proxy for “effort”. It’s possible to make a caloric estimate for each expedition assuming the athlete is 190 pounds and that each activity consumes a predictable amount of calories per hour at high exertion. Using this method we can figure out which of the 10DL expeditions is “hardest”, by virtue of the caloric expenditure required to complete it. The source for the calorie count information is here.

3. The third and last step is to type all this into Excel. The results show that the caloric expenditure ranges from the lowest of 57,500 calories in 10DL Australia to 138,000 calories in 10DL Antarctica. It’s not surprising that Antarctica is one of the hardest, and that calorie estimate doesn’t even take into the account the cold temperature, which will consume even more calories as our bodies try to keep warm. Below is the model I used.

The mental side of the “difficulty” equation is much more difficult to measure. I don’t have a measure for that.

Ride stats today

• 129 miles
• Fins to South Paris; completing 10 Degrees Latitude
• Our most gorgeous bike day yet, a suitable end to an amazing journey
• 0 sheep, 5 buguettes, 2 barets
• 2 huge smiles and cigars at the end

Our journey took us 14 days of biking and 1 day of swimming across the English Channel. This works out to be 1000 miles on bike and 25 miles in the water. It was gorgeous, stunning territory, and the good thing about traveling as we did was that we really got to enjoy the countryside, see the people and smell the smells (most were good).

We have so many people to thank. Our support crew made our adventure possible. Our bike crew (Flora and Bob), our swim crew (Tricia, Amy, Flora, Laura, Dave, Teresa, and the entire Ocean Breeze crew) and our home crew (Michelle, Andrew, Ava and Joshua) were awesome. Our Cadence Cycling coach Mike Kuehn was super supportive. Our sponsors are all amazing people. Everyone treated us so well through the entire journey.

Here are some parting pictures from our final days in Paris. We took our final pictures at the Arc de Triomphe. A fitting end to a stunning journey.

What Motivates Us

We asked each other what we wanted from an adventure:

• I said I wanted it to have a defined goal, which basically meant it couldn’t just be a hike. I like things that are measurable and have defined ends. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing a project. Mountains are pretty good that way. The summit is the goal, so you know when you’re done. And you know when to celebrate.

• Adam said he wanted a project that let him see the world at his own pace. I got the sense that his travels with our nation’s military allowed him to see the world, but he didn’t get to choose when he came and went (and I’m projecting here, so it might not be totally accurate). I’ll addend this blog story after I ask him if this is how he actually feels about his military travels.

Swimming the English Channel

We both liked the idea of swimming the English Channel. It is a 21 mile swim in 56-degree water. Swimming the channel traces its history back to 1875 when Matthew Webb (a naval captain). Wearing a wetsuit is considered “unclassy”, as is taking more than 20 hours to complete the swim. Only 811 people have swum the channel.

Biking 1000 Miles

Somehow we got to thinking that swimming the channel was a good start, but couldn’t be the whole adventure. Firstly, it’s only 20 hours. Secondly, it didn’t fulfill Adam’s desire to “see the world”.

I’ve always had a personal fascination with Edinburgh. It is such a green city, and the home of the world’s first medical school. I knew I wanted to visit it again. So I asked Adam if adding a hugely long bicycle tour to our expedition would be a clever idea. He thought it sounded crazy, and fun.

We were almost all the way there…

Naming Our Baby

Adam noticed that the northern most part of Scotland was at the 58th Latitude, and Paris was at the 48th Latitude. That was 10 Degrees of Latitude. We thought to ourselves, wow that is pretty cool.
Together we decided to name our expedition 10 Degrees of Latitude. The name stuck.

10 Degrees of Latitude visits the 7 Continents

As some of you might know I set out a number of years ago to climb the tallest mountain on all seven continents. I finished this goal in 2005, after climbing Mount Everest. It was an amazing journey, and one that I would love to repeat, with a twist (and with Adam).

Every year 10 Degrees of Latitude will be visiting a new continent. Our first continent is Europe in 2008. Every year we will invite more participants to join us in our journey. We will raise money for important causes on each continent, visit with locals, and experience the world’s cultures first hand. Join us!

One Last Thought

It is fascinating to think we will be traversing distances that are so vast that they are visible on a map. Makes me shiver.