Mike Stroud – From Ice to Dust
Mike Stroud - From Ice to Dust
Mike Stroud is best known for his undertakings with Sir Ranulph Fiennes. They first teamed up between 1986 and 1990, making several attempts to reach the North Pole on foot and unsupported. These included a record breaking journey from Siberia which raised more than £2.4 million for charity. Following this, they switched their attention to Antarctica where in 1992/93 they succeeded in completing the first unaided walk across the continent from coast to coast via the South Pole. This entailed more than 1500 miles on foot dragging all their supplies and equipment without help from other men, animals or machines. At times, temperatures fell to less than -50 centigrade with winds exceeding 100 miles per hour. On his return Mike was awarded the OBE for ‘Human Endeavour and Services to Charity’ and the Polar Medal for ‘Services to Arctic and Antarctic exploration’.
Since that last Polar journey, Mike has continued his interest in extremes, with ventures including the 1994 ‘Marathon of the Sands’ – a Trans-Sahara multi-marathon, and the 1995 and 96 ‘Eco-Challenge’ adventure races – team events using skills such as climbing, canoeing, horse-riding, rafting and mountain biking to race non-stop across hundreds of miles of back country. In the 1996 Eco-Challenge held in the mountains of Western Canada, his team ‘Fit For Life’ included not only Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Rebecca Stephens MBE, but his 72 year old father Vic. In April 2002, Mike completed the first unsupported, non-stop run across the Qatar desert, covering 200 km in just 3 days, and most recently, he and Sir Ranulph completed 7 marathons, in 7 days, on 7 different continents, again for charity. He has also featured as the expert on endurance in the TV series ‘SAS – Are you tough enough?’ and presented and narrated the BBC series ‘The Challenge’. Mike’s presentation gives an account of these ventures, not only describing the physical and psychological hardships that he and Sir Ranulph endured, but using the topics to illustrate how vision, planning, teamwork and determination can make any idea successful. Despite describing truly desperate conditions, his presentations also never lack for humour!
