Tuesday 24 December 2019 12:35, UK
Former England Rugby World Cup winner Lewis Moody chats to Sky Sports Rugby about his latest venture: an upcoming trip to the South Pole, and the inspiration behind taking on such a challenge...
Speaking as a guest on the latest Will Greenwood Podcast, Moody chatted to Sky's James Gemmell and Will about his expedition, what it's like to take on such a feat and the young boy whose memory is driving the Lewis Moody Foundation.
"We are going to the South Pole and Antarctica," Moody told Sky Sports.
"The reason for that is every year since setting up my Lewis Moody Foundation, we have done a major challenge and we started with the North Pole. That sort of started the point of the compass and we worked our way round.
"We went off on a bit of a tangent: we went east, we went west rather than south, and then we thought that as we started north, we'll finish in the South Pole.
"We always take a group of like-minded people and it's never a race, it's just about getting everyone to the end.
"Whether it's the North Pole, 1,000 miles across Cambodia and Vietnam, coast-to-coast across Costa Rica, it's just about getting everyone to the end.
"It's a mix. You have your ultra-athlete, or we've had 20-stone, 50-year-olds who have been sat behind a desk for a long time.
"What I love about all of the trips is that they're so galvanising in terms of the team that you take and the time that you have. Certainly in the tents on the South Pole, we'll be on the ice for 10 nights, so each night you'll have to get into your routine.
"We're doing the last degree of the South Pole essentially."
After Christmas, Moody will travel to the extreme south via Chile, with the 41-year-old and all involved having to deal with not only the extreme cold, but altitude and a barely setting sun, which will sit on the horizon almost the whole time.
The mental side of things is the toughest part of such an excursion in Moody's view.
"My flight leaves on New Year's Eve, 11.55pm, and then it's due to be the 2nd or 3rd of January that we get to the Pole," he added.
"It's all mental. It's about getting up in the morning, going through your routines, making sure you've got all your food, your drink, your hot water cooked, your sledge in order so when you get out for two hours, you can stop and have a little break, get your warm jacket on, your snack bag out, hot water bottle, have 10 minutes and go again.
"And then when you stop for the evenings, it's about really quickly getting into a routine about who's doing what. So when we had teams of three, two people would put the tent up, one would go through the sledges and get the inside of the tent sorted.
"You get out there and you put people in a harsh, challenging, stressful environment, but actually they've got nothing else to worry about other than getting through the day, and going from A to B.
"That's when you really start to see people, the individuals.
"If they are in a challenging environment, who will be the first to support? The first to forget something - invariably me! - who's going to be prepared? Who's going to be last packing the tent every morning? How do they deal with that, how do we support each other so no one is feeling left out or at the back of the group every time.
"Those leaders that we have often do a lot of leading from the back so people can take it turns and rotate. If you've got tired legs, sometimes just being at the front is enough of a positive boost to think: 'I'm not as bad as I thought'.
"But it is all about preparation. The physical side of it, and it will be challenging for some don't get me wrong, but it's copeable. The mental side is the hardest part."
So why do this? What is the driving force behind these challenges?
"We started the foundation in 2013/14, after meeting a young man called Joss Rowley-Stark. A young rugby player, I had just got a letter off his dad asking if I would come up and take a rugby session. Joss had a rare form of cancer but he wanted to help his mates get to South Africa - I think it was U14s at the time.
"I'd recently retired, so I went up, met Joss, met Graeme his dad and the rest of the family and I just kept in touch.
"Over the course of a year, I did various things with them and then got a letter from his dad saying: 'Is there anything you can do to help?' They were having a bit of a tough time: medical history, hospitals, all that routine of being ill.
"So we took him to Twickenham and had an incredible day. We met all the players and had a great day out. Leo, Joss' brother was 13, and Joss was 15 at the time, and they loved it.
"I got a call from Joss' dad to say it was perfect, but sadly Joss had passed away two weeks after we took him to Twickenham. And it just impacted me and my wife enormously to the point that we said: 'We're invested in various different charities, but where can we actually make a difference?'
"This young man was so inspirational, such a good character, a lovely human being. How can we use his passing for good? So we set-up the foundation in Joss' memory and all of our fundraising is targeted towards brain tumours and every penny we raise goes to a brain tumour charity.
"This challenge [to the South Pole] is all about funding the Brain Matrix, which is Tessa Jowell's lasting memory, who sadly passed away a year-and-a-half ago from a brain tumour.
"Her legacy is the Brain Matrix, a clinical trial to bank as much data as usual as there are so many different brain tumours - it's the biggest cancer killer of people under 40 and children bar none, but was the least funded, because it's so difficult.
"With the Brain Matrix, each individual could have a better treatment plan.
"We're trying to raise £250,000, and hopefully we smash that."
