Lorraine Morley, an ambitious MBA student at Warwick, has recently accepted a challenge to take part in one of the world’s most extreme endurance races, taking place this December. The Amundsen Omega 3 South Pole race is the first since the historic competition between Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott in 1911, and will see 12 international teams of three race over 430 miles.

Lorraine was selected to lead a team of her own, after doing well in the selection process to find a third person to accompany Ben Fogle and James Cracknell. Though not chosen for this position, Lorraine was invited to form her own team and take part that way.

Along with her team members, Lorraine will now spend the months in the run up to the race training hard for the expedition, including a week on a crevasse rescue training week in Austria and a pre-race expedition to Greenland to test equipment and help the team members with polar acclimatisation. The team will also be throwing themselves into fundraising, with £42,300 required for the team to enter, as well as the funds the team will donate to the Julian Budd Kids in Sport Trust.

Lorraine comments:

This one-off race is over 430 miles on cross country skis, man-hauling 70 kilo pulks each, and will take between 30 to 45 days to complete. There is no rescue or recovery unless your life is endangered, and with 12 teams, each of 3 people, the competition between individual teams and between countries will be intense. It is the world’s most extreme endurance race. At 45 when the race takes place, I believe I am the oldest woman to be competing, so have something to prove and obviously I want to win!

There will be a TV crew filming the race for a documentary which will be shown on BBC2 called On Thin Ice, and so there is lots of opportunity for sponsorship and product placement, so I'm hoping people who can't do this sort of thing themselves, but who want to feel involved, or businesses who may like to see their products in use during the race, will get in touch and offer help and support."

Contact Lorraine on her email: lorraine.morley@morleyassoc.co.uk or on her business number: +44 (0) 1858 565885.

^{Lorraine in training for the race to the South Pole}