Day 31

S79 45' 39.60", W82 51' 24.84"

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Rest and recovery for Martin, but a marathon effort from Louis

“Evening everyone, it’s Martin, on Day 31 of the expedition.

Calling from Union Glacier, which is ALE’s main logistics hub, which where we landed into when we first got here. We got the plane in this morning back from Thiels, and we’re now back here.

First day of no skiing today, and resting. Trying to get this Achilles tendon sorted out. I’m in with the doctors in the morning, so I’ll see what they say. We got back here, got our kit sorted out, had a shower – which was very pleasant – and then started resting.

Lou on the other hand, is not resting. He’s currently doing a marathon. As we got back here, there’s an Antarctic Ice Marathon on today of all days. We got back, and Lou had a chat with the guy that runs it. When he was here on the SPEAR17 expedition, which he led a few years ago, they got back here and a lot of the SPEAR lads did it. Lou has decided to do it this time round, which is good. So he’s currently about 25 kilometres through, and he’s doing ok. He’s fine, he’s chugging along. I obviously am not doing it. So hopefully he’ll get it completed in an hour and a half to two hours’ time.

That’s us now, we’re just going to be staying here and resting until hopefully we get the all-clear at some point in the next week or so, to get back out and try and get to the South Pole. Obviously we’ll have to do a shorter distance to what we originally planned; if we can get out and do the last degree, we’ll end up doing around the 400-mile mark, rather than the 720-mile mark, and then get back in time to go and do the summit bid for Vinson.

At the minute, it’s all down to what the doctors say about the Achilles tendon. So I have to rest, and hopefully we’ll have more news soon.

All the best. Thanks very much everyone.”
— Martin Hewitt

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