BEYOND ENDURANCE - CLARE O'LEARY

Clare O’Leary made history when she became the first Irish woman to reach the South Pole earlier this year, she also claims the title for being the first Irish woman to climb Mount Everest and first Irish female to complete the Seven Summits.

When she’s not hanging herself off the side of mountains risking her life Clare is working as a specialist in gastroenterology and internal medicine in South Tipperary General Hospital. The Cork woman with a taste for adventure talks to WMB about her latest feat…

How do you prepare yourself mentally for such a grueling feat as crossing the

South Pole?
If you’re going to take on a trip like the one to the South Pole you have to really want to do it. We were on the ice for 58 days so there’s going to be days where you really feel like you can’t stand it but no matter how sorry I would have been for myself I never really would’ve felt like turning around and giving in. I think the thing is to really want it and to be willing to work hard.

And physically?
It takes probably about three years of training for a trip as big as the South Pole. So that was a combination of fitness training and training specifically for skiing and pulling a sled weighing 90 kilos for a set period of time. Most of our training for the skiing and sled pulling was done in Norway and we did a crossing of Greenland in August, which was probably the best training we could have done.

You must have oodles of stamina. Was there any point at which you felt “I’m not going to make this”?
The thing is I’ve done other massive expeditions at this stage so I know that no matter how wrecked I am I can still go on… you know you’d be surprised at what you learn about yourself. And I guess the other thing is having a team. We all have good days and bad days but there’s a lot of support in a team.

Did Freddy feel a bit out of his comfort zone? Tell us about how Freddy came to join you and the team?
Freddy, the teddy bear, is a mascot that I’ve been using on all my big expeditions so far. He’s used as sort of an educational tool to help generate interest in school kids and in the exhibition. So I write a diary for Freddy and it’s a story based loosely around what we’re doing but still at a level that might interest kids. It originated from Tyrone National School and to see the enthusiasm of the kids there is just great, they all came out with little banners for Freddy. So there is a lot of interest.

Your feat is something to be so proud of. It also enables others to follow in your footsteps. How does this effect what you plan as an adventurer?
I would definitely encourage people to follow their dreams but whatever you are going to go for you have to really want it and put in the time and the preparation. There’s no point in thinking that ‘oh a trip to Antarctica sounds nice’. If you don’t put in the training you’re going to put yourself at risk number one and probably have a dreadful time number two.

For many people, it might be difficult to equate the harsh temperatures that you ‘voluntarily’ endured — as low as -58c — how was this possible?
Part of the preparation is getting the right gear and the right equipment for these kind of trips so we would have had the best of gear available because they are extreme temperatures and they’re temperatures that you can’t train for really. When you’re on the move you can tolerate it but when stopping to eat or make a repair you just have to be really cautious and some of that you learn through experience as well.

Read more about Clare O'Leary in the June | July 2008 issue of WMB, on newsstands now.