Colin O'Brady, an American adventurer, has completed a solo, unsupported, unaided crossing of Antarctica. That's 925 miles of human powered travel in an inhospitable environment with only the supplies you can drag behind you on a sled. That's an average of 18 miles a day, for 54 days in a row.

Two days later, a 50 year old British Army captain named Louis Rudd completed the same journey. He had an unusually casual approach to food:

My grazing bag is a tropical mix that I bought from Asda – I just grabbed what was available every time I went in, until I had 70 bags. Then there are Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars, and some cheese and salami I bought in Chile.

When Rudd stopped at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, he couldn't go inside or accept even a cup of tea, or he would lose "unsupported" status. Image having lived in subzero temps for weeks, and knowing there was a warm bed nearby, and having to walk away to weeks more in the cold. And it's really cold, the all time high temperature ever recorded at the South Pole was a balmy −12.3 °C (9.9 °F). Just in case you think Antartica is flat, the south pole is actually 2,835 meters (9,301 feet) above sea level.

Colin O'Brady calls this trek "The Impossible First". He's also fond of saying "We all have reservoirs of untapped potential."

Indeed.