A Pathfinder supplement focussed on health and wellbeing.
The January issue of Pathfinder International magazine is out now and ready to read for free below.
Inside this month:
Read it for free HERE!
Motorsport takes centre stage in Military Muscle inside Pathfinder International, with editor Mal Robinson catching up with R1 Race Drivers and Veterans, Warren McKinlay and Martyn Compton.
As ever, tell us a little about your military career…
Warren: “I was a recovery mechanic in the REME, I served from 1999 to 2006, I did a peacekeeping tour in Bosnia and I was medically discharged in 2006 after a motorbike accident from which I received a brain injury.
As a result of the brain injury I suffered from something called Cotard’s Syndrome which basically meant that I believed that I had died in the motorbike accident for 18 months after. I only found out four or five years ago about it and how it is a rare condition.”
Martyn: “I joined the Household Cavalry in 2000 and I did my first tour of Afghanistan in 2006 whilst with D Squadron and I was hit on August 1 by an IED. It was an ambush basically. They’d been there for two weeks, and they’d set up a full-on ambush for the whole squadron to drive into.
I was the lucky one really. I managed to get out, three guys who were in my wagon unfortunately didn’t. When the IED went off, it basically tore the wagon in half and they then shot rocket grenades at me and as I got out of that, they also shot me twice.
I woke up four months later having sustained 75% burns to my body.
I went through Headley Court and officially got out in 2014.”
How did you get into racing?
Martyn: “Going through Headley Court four years in I was diagnosed with PTSD and for four years I was having surgery and being fixed at Headley Court and it went on like that for four years and eventually it kind of got to me and at that point I was introduced to Go-Karting and it was a way of me getting out of Headley Court for a bit and also see guys who had gone through similar.
So, I started racing Go Karts and it took the natural line of wanting to go faster and the next step up was racing cars.”
Warren: “I went pretty much the same route as Martyn really. When I was discharged in 2006 there was nothing like there is today. Help for Heroes didn’t exist or none of the other motorsport charities. That all started from 2007 onwards, I was basically nearly ten years out of the Army before I was approached by the same military Go Kart charity, Kartforce who Martyn had been racing with.
I had no intention of doing any racing. I always had a sort of interest in watching racing, but no real intention of being a race driver, even to the point where I turned up on the first day to try out the Go Karting and I wanted to turn round and drive home, I was just so anxious about it all. I phoned my missus up and said “this is not for me, this is for guys who have been injured in service” she was just like, “well you’re there you might as well have a go” and I kicked everyone’s backsides (Martyn add because he wasn’t there at the time!) and things just snowballed from there. I really got into it and I didn’t realise how lost I was if you like. I had been out of complete military contact because when I discharged, there was mass deployments to Iraq and Afghan, so no one around, and to go Go Karting had brought back what I had been missing from the military – just being with the lads and having that bond again, the camaraderie and competition.
What I found it helped with, because of the head injury, I really suffered with mood control, I could go from hot to cold really quickly. The thing I found with race driving was it helped me focus and shield all of that out and just had pure concentration on driving.”
Martyn: “At the beginning of this year we set our own business up called Stand2 Motorsport with the intention of racing the Praga which we done last season. It was a step up to what we had previously raced. Our intention was to trail on our own as our own team, so we showed what we could do and now we have big things lined up for next season after we finished P3 in class in what was a very competitive field so we were really chuffed with how we had finished.”
Warren: “It was a learning year for us, it wasn’t our first year of racing, we’d been team mates for the last three or four years, but we’d always been racing with other teams and realised that their goals didn’t line up with what we wanted to do so we decided mid-way through 2019 that we were going to set up and go alone.
This year in the Praga is massively different car to what we have been driving before it is basically like a baby Le Mans protype car, it carries so much speed through the corners. It is actually a really tricky car to learn to drive because you have the mechanical grip of the tyre, so if you go into a corner at sixty miles per hour, you will get around the corner with the mechanical grip of the tyre. If you go around the corner at seventy miles per hour, you’ll crash because you are going too fast for the mechanical grip, but you are not going fast enough for the aero dynamics to work.
There is a real big mental barrier you’ve got to get over thinking “I drove around this corner at seventy and crashed, but I have been told if I drive around this corner at one hundred miles per hour I will get around it fine.” So that is the biggest learning curve but once you get over it, its like your face hurts when you get out because it is so awesome, you just want to go faster and faster and faster!”
And the aims for next season?
Warren: “In 2020 we purposely drove the Praga R1 S which is a naturally aspirated engine and to take the progression to the Praga R1 T, which is the same engine, but it is turbo charged. The naturally aspirated car runs about 230 brake horsepower and the turbo car runs about 400 brake horsepower. So our aim for next year is to follow this car through the process of turning it from non-turbo into a turbo and this should have a big benchmark on how much we have learnt and progressed with the car.”
Tell us about a little more about a famous sponsor of yours…
Martyn: “This came about through a story that I did. I was brought up in Exeter and his (Chris Martin) family still live there and he had been passed my story and Chris Martin supports what we do, and we wear the Coldplay badge.”
And how would you explain how to get into motor racing?
Warren: “That is actually one of the things we want to do as part of Stand2 Motorsport is offer serving and veterans to come along and join the team, see what is going on. Motorsport is this big shiny bubble that people look at and go wow I can’t get into that its inaccessible. But as you get into the sport everyone who is operating at our level is one big family. Everyone just wants to help each other, and it is a lot easier to get into once you know the direction you want to go.
The advice I’d give now is if they didn’t want to contact us is just go along to a racetrack see what it’s all about and speak to some of the teams. Everyone is always happy and willing to have a chat.”
How have Praga been with you?
Warren: “You say about working with Praga and they have been brilliant. They are 114 years old, they used to make trucks and mini tanks and they have been rebranded into producing hi level Go Karts and as such Praga is the perfect stepping stone from Go Karting to car racing.”
You can contact the guys at Stand2 Motorsport (whom are always interested in potential sponsors too) by visiting their website www.stand2motorsport.co.uk or email info@stand2motorsport.co.uk
Read the entire issue of Pathfinder HERE!
Pathfinder International is delighted to welcome Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE in an exclusive interview for 2020 which is held in two parts. The second part of our interview looks at Sir Ranulph’s amazing expeditionary adventures. The first part below discusses his military days, leading to his own resettlement journey, something he created himself. Here he tells Pathfinder editor, Mal Robinson about a brief albeit colourful Army career…
I am lucky to say there a few names remaining on my “wants” list to interview. I have been fortunate enough to speak to an array of famous and incredible motivational people in the past, yet the name of Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE was one that had eluded me…until now.
COVID19 robbed me of a face to face meeting with the legendary explorer, yet a phone conversation was just as awe inspiring, as Sir Ranulph and I chatted for over 40 minutes on an incredible life, crammed full of achievement, adventure and industry.
I begin by asking Sir Ranulph if the notion of pushing the boundaries of travel was always on the agenda….
“My father was killed four months after I was born commanding the Royal Scots Greys near Naples, he had been wounded five times commanding that tank regiment including at El Alamein and later the landing at Salerno at the bottom of Italy. He trod on a mine before they freed Naples.
Dad’s father had married a South African lady, my grandmother, the whole family died apart from my grandmother and my mother and my sisters and I were all taken out by granny to South Africa. I was one-year old and I didn’t come back (to the UK) until I was 11 years old” starts Sir Ranulph.
“By which time I had been brought up on stories about my dad and in the army and the only thing I wanted to do, never mind expeditions was to do what he done and become the Colonel of The Royal Scots Greys cavalry regiment.
By that time we were of course in 70-tonne conqueror tanks in the British Army on the Rhine and waiting for the Soviet army to attack and they never did and so Scotsmen got bored and started beating each other up instead and our job as Officers was to keep them from doing that by taking them adventure training.
So I became the bloke in charge of the canoe team going up all of the European rivers like the Loire, the Rhone and the Rhine and the Vaser – great to escape from tank training on the ranges and in winter time there was skiing with the team. That was fine except that I was not going to become what I wanted, the Commanding Officer of the regiment simply because in South Africa I’d not been studying the same as when I arrived in the UK, things which were called A Levels.
In his day, dad’s day you didn’t have to have A Levels to get to Sandhurst. By my time you had to have at least two of them. I tried really, really hard but could not get the A Levels, could not go to Sandhurst and if you don’t go to Sandhurst, your chances of making it to Colonel of any regiment are considerably less.
And so, I didn’t want to do expeditions, I just wanted to be Colonel of my regiment – that’s all.”
The conversation moves on to discuss Sir Ranulph’s plan b as an aside to becoming CO.
“From Mons Cadet School instead of Sandhurst, I thought they would maybe make me Colonel anyway as I will prove that even if I didn’t go to Sandhurst, I could still do it. From Mons you get a short service commission of three years plus in those days you were allowed to sign on for five years, one year at a time. So, I signed on to try and got into the SAS as I heard they had an interesting time of it, and I passed the selection course and was doing all of the continuation training type stuff.
I went for demolition as my speciality and unfortunately I got involved with blowing up civilian property with army explosives which was not popular at that time and so I got thrown out of the SAS back to the Scots Greys who were still in Germany.
The tank training was just as boring as it has been before, so I applied again this time for the Arab army of the Army of the Sultan of Oman who was having big trouble after Harold Wilson left Aden. The Soviets moved in and trained the Yemeni blokes to be against the Sultan of Oman who had a treaty with the British for over three hundred years of friendship and therefore they sent volunteer officers like me out to command various Arab forces in the Sultan’s army against the insurgents who had been trained in the Soviet Union. They were mostly trained in the Ukraine and I have to say very well armed. They were better armed than us in the Sultan’s army.”
It was during Sir Ranulph’s time with the Sultan’s army, did he think about leaving the military when his commission came to an end and his wife, Ginny helped shape the course of his life.
“The time came when I realised I definitely would not become Colonel and my 8 years maximum from Mons Cadet School was up and I was thrown out of the army and at that same time I married my childhood sweetheart Ginny and we didn’t have much money and I didn’t have an army pension. She worked for the Scottish National Trust and whilst we were up there having breakfast one day, she suggested what we could do based on what I had been doing in Army adventure training.
She told me about a guy called Chris Bonington who was also an ex-tank officer, he climbed mountains and he did it and he made a living out of it by lecturing about it after he had done the expeditions and maybe writing books. She said maybe we could try doing that.
I said we’d need sponsorship for the equipment and stuff, and she replied saying that might be possible then if we know we can give them publicity. We found at that time in the UK the media didn’t want to cover expeditions unless they were Polar”.
And that’s how Sir Ranulph became embroiled in the world of exploratory travel within the Polar regions and the rest as they say is history.
Read the second part of Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE inside the latest issue of Pathfinder International by clicking HERE!
The October 2020 issue of Pathfinder International – the leading UK military resettlement magazine is now available to read online for free below.
Inside this month:
Military Muscle magazine inside of Pathfinder International spoke to former Gurkha and SBS Operative Nirmal “Nims” Purja MBE who has recently smashed the World Record for climbing 14 of the World’s Tallest Mountains in just 6 months!
Nirmal “Nims” Purja is a machine – simple.
Not content with being in two of the hardest units within the UK Armed Forces (The Gurkhas and The Special Boat Service) he then smashes the World Record for climbing 14 of the globe’s tallest peaks in just 6 months, breaking the record by almost 7 years!
Sandwiched in between, Nims climbed Mount Everest, then climbed it again, along with a selection of the World’s top 3 peaks within days of each other. Here, editor Mal Robinson spoke to Nims ahead of a book launch to see what made the 2019 Red Bull Mountaineer of the Year for 2019 tick…
“I joined the Gurkhas in 2003 and did my basic training at Catterick and joined the Gurkha Engineers. Whilst I was with the Engineers, I did the All Arms Commando course and after that I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 as close support for the Royal Marines.
It was after this I went for the Special Forces selection and ended up in the Special Forces for 10 years” recalls Nims.
“In life I always look for the bigger challenges so when I was in Nepal, joining the Gurkhas was a big thing and once I joined the Gurkhas, I found out about the Special Forces and the reason why I joined the SBS was they offered specialist skills in diving and so I was quite interested in that as well and that’s why I ended up at the SBS.”
Climbing wasn’t always first on the agenda though as Nims explains…
“In 2012 during Christmas leave I set off to Nepal to do a expedition trek with another friend from the SAS and we ended up climbing 6,200 metre mountains and we had no experience, we didn’t even have crampons (a traction device for climbing) and from there, the mindset of the Special Forces, you think you are invincible and once I started climbing, the mountain completed the perspective for me.
It just showed you how tiny and how small we are.
From there I went back and I managed to get into the Mountaineering Troop and from there I started to do climbing in my own time, on leave and stuff and I was slowly improving my skills and experience constantly.
It was only 2014 and I managed to climb a mountain which was 8,167m whilst I was still in the services and 2016 I went and climbed Everest and I ended up rescuing a climber who was left behind just below the balcony at 8380m which is quite high up and I did that rescue in about 90 minutes or so, when it should take about five or six hours. That is when I decided I would just climb with oxygen.
After that I was still in service and in 2017 there was a Gurkha expedition to Everest and I went there as one of the instructors and every year there would be an official team that would fix a line to the summit, but they couldn’t this time because of the weather and what it meant for me was in thinking, whilst this was the second time on Everest for us using British tax payers money, when would I ever get the third chance to go and do this (Everest)?
To get an expedition signed off and all sorted and squared away to climb Everest is quite hard and another expedition would be expensive.
When people say you are a Gurkha, they think Mount Everest is in your back garden when being a Gurkha is more being a fearless soldier and not to summit a mountain in your home country would have been a bit of an embarrassment and because of all these factors and there was no one on Everest that year with experience enough, I stepped up and led the line fixing team long with two other instructors and Sherpas and we managed to fix lines to the summit and we reached the summit.
What happened after that was I got back to Kathmandu to celebrate with the guys and then and then I went up and climbed Everest again, Lhotse which is the World’s fourth highest mountain and Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in five days and during that process I had broken three World Records.
But obviously no one knew as I was still in the Special Forces.”
This did not deter Nims though…
“In 2018 I was appointed Head of the Mountain Cell as a badge representative and the idea was to go out and discover and learn any new skills and return back with the knowledge to teach to the service. It made sense for me to go and get that experience and improve my mountaineering but unfortunately, I couldn’t get out to do the climbs and this is when I thought, maybe I need to get out.
I think after serving 10 years (in the SBS) I needed a bigger challenge as well and I wanted to see what the human body could physically do when pushed to extremes.
So I came up with the idea of climbing several mountains and to break the World Record of climbing the 14 tallest and when I came up with the idea everyone was laughing about it saying if the record of the full marathon is in 2 hours then I will do that in like 15 minutes.
The idea was to climb the 14 highest mountains in the world at the 8,000 metre range and the fastest someone has climbed them was near 8 years and I did that in 6 months and 6 days and I did that in an unorthodox way.
You keep have people saying this is not possible, that is not possible, until you do it and then they say, “oh yeah that was possible!”
I have set fixed lines on mountains where people summited, I have been the front of the ropes, so basically you do the hard work which is called trailblazing, you are the first guy, you are opening the route and the rest of the guys follow on that path and when people are following you that is so much easier for them rather than you.
Most of the mountains I would do the trailblazing. We are the military, we adapt, and we learn lessons from previous experience. And in 2016 I decided to use Oxygen so I can save lives when needed.”
Tell us more about fixing lines and trailblazing?
“Fixing lines you are the first guy, the first team, you trailblaze, you fix the line and other people climb on the path that has been trailblazed, using the rope set out, so they can follow and that’s what I did on most of the climbs.
There were a few mountains where we opened a new route and even K2 when everyone had given up that season in 2019, we opened up the route to allow climbers to follow.
You are talking weather with winds of 70-80kms per hour, so not easy.
Through all of this I was announced as number one mountaineer for 2019 from Red Bull which was great.”
And what motivates you?
“I always love that challenge, I am always hungry, and I am never satisfied, I like getting out there and getting that experience challenging myself and that’s who I am. I would like to say that all of the guys and girls who have left the military and it is an amazing platform, don’t take it for granted. You learn how to be disciplined, you learn how to be humble, there are so many transferrable skills, even like the recent lockdown, that is just like operations for us.
It is all about breaking it down and transferring your military skills to go on and do some greater things. With that in mind if anyone is interested in trekking to the likes of Everest then I have a mountaineering expedition company set up called Elite Himalayan Adventures and we do provide quite bit of discount for military personnel, its all about looking after one another too.”
And your new book is on the horizon…
“The book Beyond Possible is out on the 12th of November and will cover what I went through as I encountered a massive mental challenge it was both physical and emotional, everything was draining to death! Climbing the mountains was the easiest part, the fundraising and managing the whole Bremont Project Possible agenda and deal with the politics at times, waiting for permissions to climb in various places for example the Chinese opened up one of the mountains only for my team to access, so the whole process including diplomatic stuff which has gone into this project was immense.
People will definitely get a lot from this book.”
Nims’ record breaking schedule for summiting all 14 of the world’s highest peaks in 2019 was as follows:
Annapurna 23 April
Dhaulagiri 12 May
Kanchenjunga 15 May
Everest 22 May
Lhotse 22 May
Makalu 24 May
Nanga Parbat 3 July
Gasherbrum I 15 July
Gasherbrum II 18 July
K2 24 July
Broad Peak 26 July
Cho Oyu 23 September
Manaslu 27 September
Shishapangma 29 October
Read the entire issue of Pathfinder International & Military Muscle HERE FOR FREE!
Military Muscle the new health and lifestyle supplement inside Pathfinder International caught up with Sgt Rhys Rutledge of the Welsh Guards to hear about his new scheme “Defeat Don’t Repeat” and how he is helping young offenders change the course of their lives as he has with his…
“I came from a hardworking family and I was brought up, not dragged up” begins Rhys.
“The first turning point in my life was making the wrong decision at such a young age. I wanted to be that little bit different, I wanted my own independence, I wanted to start earning money and that was the route I chose to take and the easiest option at that time.
I was kind of at a loss, I finished school and I didn’t know what I really wanted to do with myself and so from a young age I started dabbling in a bit of weed, sort of low level stuff and from there it really did progress to selling cocaine, speed, pills, acid, you name it – pretty much anything I could get my hands on, I was selling it.
And that’s when it started to spiral out of control…it got big and it got big very quick!
The ironic thing about all this is how it took a massive 360-degree turn. I had gone from a person demanding money if money was not paid on time, going around and taunting families to now actually being on the receiving end of it.
This is when I began to take cocaine and of course it is highly addictive and that is really when it did go downhill from there.
I am a strong believer in karma, and I was now on the receiving end of taunts and threats. The interrogation that my family was under and the constant intimidation from certain people in my area and they weren’t just low-level people, they were high up business personnel and not the sort of people to mess around with.
I was sentenced at the age of 19 and sent to prison but this did not stop things from escalating as I had a substantial debt hanging over my head and you are talking thousands of pounds at this point. The debt was never wiped and I came out of prison and had no other option but to carry on selling drugs, but now doing it on an even larger scale in order to pay off these people as quickly as possible.
I did this for another two years and in the meantime absolutely destroying my family, destroying anyone who got in the way and I was so fixated on feeding a habit again, paying money that I was owed and due and under a lot of pressure and I had even contemplated suicide twice because I could not see any other option or way out.
I was so in a dark place at that time.”
It was at this point, Rhys somehow looked to turn his life around, for the better this time…
“The second time I had looked at suicide, my mother had walked into my room and I was literally on my hands and knees crying for help at this point. I said “listen, I need to get away from here, I need something in my life to give me a purpose, I can’t see a way out.”
That is when I the decision to join the Army. The reason for this was what I was lacking in my previous lifestyle, which was discipline and structure and I thought what better place to go than the Army?”
And so, onto Rhys’ scheme – Defeat Don’t Repeat” …
“In 2018, whilst I was away on tour, the layout of the room was the same concept as a prison cell and whilst I was there, I had a bit of down time and I wondered what x. y and z were doing with themselves these days, wondering if they were still alive.
And then I thought what can I give back?
I had been through hell and come out the other side.
I floated the idea to the hierarchy within the Battalion, laid my cards on the table and wanted to exploit my story to help people out in a similar situation to what I was in.
People who have been to prison we tend to wipe our hands with them as a society and I am an example you can change.
As a result, I ran a course to offenders last October and it was a massive success. Due to COVID I have not been able to run courses in the meantime, but what I would like for the future is for serving military personnel to come forward if they also have previous and help deliver this. If you have a DS on these courses and they have been to prison, the student on the course with have an instant connection and that’s why it is and can be a further success.”
Follow Rhys on Facebook by searching Defeat Don’t Repeat or follow @RhysDDR on Twitter.
Read the entire issue of Pathfinder International & Military Muscle HERE FOR FREE!
The latest issue of Pathfinder International magazine is out now and available to read for free below.
Inside this month’s issue…
Louis Rudd MBE is a record-breaking polar adventurer, expedition leader, former Royal Marine Commando and SAS soldier, with 34 years of service. He is the first – and only – person to have traversed Antarctica twice using human power alone and has reached the South Pole three times from different coastal start points.
Louis’ first trip to Antarctica was in 2011/12 on the Scott-Amundsen Centenary Race Expedition. Along with Lt Col Henry Worsley MBE, Polar Medal, he skied 800 miles over 67 days unsupported from the Bay of Whales, up the Axel Heiberg Glacier to the South Pole, following the original route of the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. The expedition raised £150,000 for the Royal British Legion charity.
In 2016/17 he planned and led a team of five Army Reservists on a 67-day, 1,100-mile traverse of Antarctica. The SPEAR17 Expedition started at Hercules Inlet, skied 700 miles unsupported to the South Pole, collected a resupply and then crossed the Titan Dome and descended the Shackleton Glacier before arriving on the Ross Ice Shelf. The expedition won multiple awards including the Sun Military Award (Millie) for ‘Inspiring Others’ and in 2018 Louis was awarded an MBE for his leadership on the journey. The team raised £50,000 for ABF The Soldiers’ Charity.
In May 2018 Louis guided a team of five civilian friends on a 570km west-to-east traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Despite a difficult season and hurricane-strength winds, the team completed the crossing in 27 days.
In 2018/19 he undertook the ‘Spirit of Endurance’ expedition which was a 56-day, 920-mile solo unsupported (no kites or resupply) crossing of the Antarctic continental land mass, becoming the first Briton and second ever in the world to complete this journey. He is the first person to traverse Antarctica twice on foot. Post-expedition, he completed a 5-month schools programme on behalf of the Army, lecturing on his military career and life of adventure. He was honoured to receive the Scientific Exploration Society’s ‘Explorer of the Year 2019’ award.
Military Muscle is naturally delighted then to have an exclusive interview with Louis, chatting about his military career, his Polar exploits, his resettlement from the forces and his new book entitled “Endurance”.
I left the forces on March 30 this year, so quite recent” begins Louis.
“I was lucky, towards the end of my time in the forces I started working for one of my sponsors and partners for one of my previous expeditions which is a company in London called Shackleton which was a very appropriate name. They are a clothing brand who make outdoor performance wear. They want to expand their business and start offering things like polar experiences so I transitioned across to start working for them as Director of Expeditions so I have been fortunate really to move into a job so things have been going pretty well.”
Tell us a little about your military career…
“From quite a young age I was interested in joining the forces and I saw it as a route to adventure. As a young lad, I read a lot of adventure style books, the likes of Ranulph Fiennes and I remember reading about Captain Scott and all that kind of stuff.
And then my mother remarried and my step father had been in the Marines several years before and that was my priority on joining the forces was being involved in adventure based stuff and so I joined the Marines at 16, straight out of school. I served 6 years with the Marines and then in 1992 when I was 22 years old, I did selection for 22 SAS, again I saw that as a great opportunity for a young Marine as my best chance of getting on adventurous operations and I served 25 years at Hereford and I was fortunate to have a fantastic career there.
It was during my time at Hereford that I ended up doing the Polar expeditions and I finished off my time, I was RSM of one of the three SAS units and then I took a commission as LE commission for three years as a Captain, but I kind of realised that a lot of LE jobs are office based, more so running stuff than delivering, so I felt after 35 years’ service that it was the right time to finish and try something a bit different.”
And how did that decision feel?
“Military life is all I had ever done, leaving school at 16 and going straight in and so all I have ever known is being a soldier and so I did think that I really need to focus on this transition period it is going to be a big change for me having been in so long, so I made sure I thought things through and did a lot of research and basically got fully prepared to minimise the disruption in the transition process.
It was a couple of years before (I started resettlement) that I decided that I am going to call it a day in the military at some point and I needed to think about what is it that I want to do? I looked at it and thought at my age having turned 50 at that point, I was like, I want to do something now that I really enjoy and that was the priority rather than try and go out and make loads of money. The priority was what am I actually going to be doing as a job to enjoy and everything else kind was kind of second place.
I thought about what do I want to do? What do I enjoy doing and what are my strengths and focussed on that. I really enjoy expeditions, I get a lot of satisfaction out of training other people, taking people on expeditions and watching them develop and get a real sense of achievement watching them overcome challenges, I find that really rewarding. All of these things were coming out when thinking about what I wanted to do and of course it had to bring in some kind of income and I had been working with Shackleton on my last expedition as an expedition partner and we had the initial discussions and laid out what I would like to do and asked if this would be a good fit for them and it was and it was a match made in heaven really.
I wore some of their clothing on my previous trip to get their brand out there and so they did a lot for me in support of the trip and I’d like to think they got a huge amount out of it in return. When I got back I mentioned leaving the military and they wanted to offer their clients the opportunity to use the clothing in the environment it is designed for, the Polar environment and we going to launch the new projects next year.”
Just how much work goes into planning an expedition?
“It depends on the scale. All of the three big Polar ones in Antarctica they were all Army adventure training expeditions and I couldn’t have done them without the support of the Army. So I need to highlight that the Army Adventure Training Scheme is phenomenal and there is actually a lot of resettlement benefit in this and the great thing about the Army Adventure Training Scheme is that you get the qualifications from the experience. You have the whole range of adventure style activities – kayaking, rock climbing, skiing, mountain biking, whatever it may be. You can progress through this scheme and get different levels of qualifications and disciplines and so if it is an outdoor activity type thing people are looking to do when leaving the military then use that adventure training scheme before you leave and get as many quals as you can.
I had done other lower level adventure training stuff in the past which have all been great fun, but these (the Polar expeditions) were level 3 projects and they involved a lot more work behind the scenes and on average for each trip probably about 2 years work. This included planning, preparation, the biggest challenge to these major trips in Antarctica is costs. The Army can’t be seen to be using (and rightly so) taxpayers money to fund these major trips so the Army support you in the fact that you are on duty, you are getting paid a salary whilst you are on these trips and you have got that insurance and top cover if things do go wrong, but ultimately you have to raise the funds yourself through corporate sponsorship.
Saying that though, the Army can assist you with that and you have lots of companies that support the MOD who can help.
In answer to your question though it is mainly 2-year projects of planning, fundraising, training, and preparing for the trips, selecting, and training your team, giving them all the necessary experience and skill sets and more.
I was serving as RSM with one of the SF Reserve units and as I got there as my two year tenure as RSM and I thought I need to do something for this unit while I am here and the Reserves in general and so I came up with the concept of a major flagship Army Reserves expedition to Antarctica. It had never been done before and again through Army Adventure Training Group I advertised and opened it up to anyone from across the Reserves for the five available places and I had literally hundreds of people apply!
We went through the briefing day and the realities of what the challenge was and I didn’t hold back, explained it is pretty brutal and basically I was going to run a yearlong selection process, which they had to commit to. It was going to be on weekends which were basically Polar boot camps. I had these big Land Rover tyres and they had to drag them around a 3 kilometre circuit and I would have them drag them around for 7 or 8 hours a day as well as conduct interviews and lots of other things thrown in there, just to give them a taste of what this type of journey can involve. In the end we had the right five people, went off to Norway and Iceland where we did the initial cold weather training.
Everyone involved in the process got lots out of it, even people that didn’t go, there were plenty of roles for people in support capacities and others got the trip out to Norway and that kind of stuff, all learning huge amounts about Polar travel, history and Antarctica and so I think it was beneficial for a lot of people.”
And so, what personally motivates Louis Rudd?
“I think always doing things like this for a good cause is a key motivator. I am becoming an ambassador for ABF Soldier Charity and throughout the course of those three Polar trips, I kind of raised over £200,000. That always motivates me when I am on the trip. Particularly on the solo one, there are obviously some pretty difficult days when you do feel sorry for yourself trudging along in a howling blizzard and it really helped to think “look you are here fundraising to support people that are actually in a much worse situation”. People have got a lifetime of challenge ahead of them with life changing injuries and that kind of helped keep things in perspective for me. Yeah, I am having a hard time now, but this is going to come to an end at some point, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with it!
In a more general sense before any major project, I always set out what my key aims and objectives were, the key messages for that trip. I limit it to four or five things, and I say this is why I am doing this trip. For example one would be “fundraising for a good cause”, or “doing it for a world first – flying the flag for Britain” other motivators would include stuff like we were doing some valuable medical research that was going to help weight loss and cancer patients so that was a huge motivator and I was also doing it as a tribute to a friend who lost his life in Antarctica and again another huge motivator so in any project you set out your stall before you embark on it. If anyone ever comes to you ask why, then straight away you have those key messages. If I am having a difficult phase on the trip, I will go right back to the start and just remind myself why I am doing this and I find that really helps clear things and restore that sense of purpose to what you are doing.”
And has there been any particular stand out points where it got really bad on the expeditions?
“On the solo one there were a couple of examples really difficult incidents.
I had a bit of a fall, I was skiing about half way to the South Pole and I was skiing in an area of disturbed ice, there were these huge ridges of ice called Sastrugi, they are carved by the wind and they are rock hard ridges and they vary from a few inches high to sometimes a few feet and I was in and amongst this area of Sastrugi and I was just stumbling over it on my skis, the pulp which was the big sledge behind you which was tied to your waist on a bit of rope was getting snagged and tipping over, really hampering my progress.
It was really bad visibility, so the cloud would come in and obscure the sun and you get this condition called Whiteout and you can’t see your hand in front of your face, it is really weird. You basically can’t see the difference from the ground to the sky and you can’t see the terrain you are skiing over.
And so I was stumbling through this Sastrugi and I ended up on a bit of a block of it, a bit higher up in the air than my surroundings and as I got to the end of it there was a sheer cliff face and a thing called a Wind Scoop, where the wind again kind of dug out the ground and resulted in this eight foot drop. It was only eight feet, but I just couldn’t see it and I skied straight off the end of it and face planted into rock hard ice below. (Louis laughs)
I crash landed and for a split second, I thought I was going down a crevasse which could have been a quite serious situation. And so, I face planted when I landed and then the sledge came over afterwards and landed across the back of my legs which was weighing about 90kgs, so this body slammed into me. I just lay there face down in the snow, bust my lip. I thought initially that I had broken my leg or something and that was quite a dark moment and I eventually shuffled out from beneath the pulp and sat there with my broken ski, hundreds of miles away from anyone in about -45 degrees and I just thought “this is ridiculous!”
I asked myself “what on earth am I doing here?” and it was only again sitting there reflecting on and going back to those original key messages of why I was doing it and eventually I sorted myself out, tentatively setting off again. That was quite a dark period on that trip.”
Tell us a little about your new book…
“It’s taken 18 months so its been quite a long project. I didn’t realise how hard writing a book was going to be. Finally, on June 11 we got the book “Endurance” out and it covers everything from my childhood and explains my background, my early fascination with Polar adventurers, Antarctica and why I have been doing this stuff. It stretches onto joining the Marines, a little bit on my time in the SAS, obviously without revealing anything sensitive at all, but the main focus of the book is about these major Polar expeditions. It covers in detail, three major trips in Antarctica and the crossing of Greenland as well with a group of civilian friends and hopefully people will enjoy the whys and the reasons behind what I have done. I’ve had lots of great feedback so far and the book is doing really well.
It is nice to get the story out there and if it motivates one or two other people to go and pursue their dreams then great. It doesn’t have to be doing anything as extreme as skiing to the South Pole, it can be a challenge of any kind. I think lately the book highlights with the right dogged determination and perseverance, no matter how crazy or insurmountable, whatever you want to do, if you keep chipping away at it and if you are passionate about it, then you will get there.”
Finally, what advice would you give to those going through resettlement and looking to get into extreme sports and expeditions…
“I would say really plan in advance. I planned for joining the Marines on what you would get in basic training and I think you need to apply the same principles to resettlement and think of what you want to do next.
So really plan ahead, use the resettlement process, it’s a brilliant scheme and just decide what your priorities are. For me it was job satisfaction and picking a job I know I would be happy doing. I always said that in the Army, that I would carry on serving if I was happy.
Figure out what is important to you, use the process to get the skills and qualifications that are going to help you. Once you decide what it is you want to do then be really determined about it and go for it!
That transition process (from military to civilian) is a huge change in your life so the more you can do to prepare for it then hopefully, the more seamless it is going to be.”
A case then of the old military adage of “Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance” applies to both Polar expeditions and military resettlement.
Louis Rudd was talking to Mal Robinson.
Louis Rudd Endurance : SAS Soldier. Polar Adventurer. Decorated Leader is out now.
Pathfinder International’s new health and fitness magazine supplement Military Muscle magazine caught up with British Army Biathlete and Totum Sport Ambassador, Amanda Lightfoot, to hear her story combining service duties and sports.
Give us a brief introduction and overview of your military career to date.
“I joined the army in 2004 into the Adjutant General Corps. I started off at the Army Foundation college in Harrogate where I completed a full year of basic training, then I went on to worthy down and out to my first posting which was in Hohne (Germany).
It was in my 3rd year at Hohne after completing a tour of Iraq that I got asked if I would like to try out skiing. I jumped at the chance as it was something I had never done before and only seen on TV… little did I know that it was not downhill skiing but in fact Nordic skiing, which I had never heard off.”
How did you get into sport?
“I was given the opportunity at 19 years of age to go adventure training. I went out to Norway and fell in love with this crazy sport. I went on to compete at the British Championships after just 3 months on snow and learning how to ski and I won all the novice prizes and got selected for the chance to train full time.”
Explain for those who don’t know a bit more about the biathlon…
“Biathlon consists of two sports which is cross country skiing combined with the accuracy of target shooting. There are many race formats during the winter season of various distances and all of them involve the accuracy of shooting during the race. The targetscare at 50metres. It requires a high amount of skills and determination to reach the top and race internationally for your country but it’s possible.”
How easy is it to combine sports and your military career?
“I would not have achieved what I have achieved without the military support. Biathlon is such a small sport in the UK with limited funding and the team struggles year to year to compete with the best in the world with only limited resources. The military have been great throughout my career and helped to balance both my military and athlete career. I return regularly to complete military courses to keep my military career up to date. “
What motivates you in sport and in life?
“My motivation comes from my will to succeed and goal setting, these are my major driving forces. When you have a goal of reaching an Olympic games the motivation and determination come easily.”
What goals have you set for sports?
“I set both short term and long-term goals, the short term are generally less difficult but vital to setting up the foundation for my long-term goals like qualifying for an Olympic games.”
What is next on the horizon sports wise for you? (COVID permitting)
“Next up for myself will be getting back to normality (Covid permitting) back into full focus and out to Germany, where I have access to all the training facilities required for my sport. Due to Covid my season ended earlier than expected and I headed back to the UK for lockdown of 11 weeks, which was unexpected. I’m now looking forward to getting back in control of my training and having access to a range to re-focus my shooting.”
What advice and tips would you give people on?
a) getting into sports/biathlon.
“Check out the local clubs in the UK there are a few options out there to get into biathlon both in the north and south of England. Take a look at www.britishbiathlon.com website and you should find all the info you need.
Also enquire at your regiment as there are many regimental and Corps teams who go out on the snow each year from complete novices to more experienced skiers all with the end goal of making the British Championships.
If anyone has any questions don’t hesitate to find me on Instagram and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.” Readers can check out Amanda’s account at @amanda.lightfoot87
b) keeping on top of your game?
“Stay focused and keep your main goal to the forefront of your mind. Set up short term goals which lead to your long-term goal. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed.
But also have something to take your mind away from your sport from time to time… mine include crocheting, learning foreign languages and learning the piano.
Believing in yourself is the key!”