British Army officer Preet Chandi completed a 70-day, 900-mile expedition through Antarctica last month.
Chandi didn’t mention records when asked about what drove her to return to Antarctica, but said she wanted to defy expectations and inspire her family.
Chandi was never the fastest or strongest athlete growing up, she said. But she’s stubborn, and that attitude helped her take quickly to endurance sports like marathon running. A physiotherapist in the British Army, Chandi likes seeing how far she can push her body. A prolonged solo expedition in Antarctica would require Chandi to traverse on cross-country skis and pull her own gear — a roughly 220-pound sled carrying her tent, equipment and weeks’ worth of food. She pulled tires at home to build her strength, enrolled in a training program in Norway that taught adventurers how to navigate, live and cook in polar conditions, and took on debt to travel for training expeditions in Greenland, Iceland and France. Still, the company said she wasn’t ready.
Chandi navigated using a compass, though she had a GPS for backup. She used a satellite phone to stay in touch with a support team and her partner, and to send updates to a blog — “She set out moving 15 hours a day and sleeping five-hour nights, raising and stowing a tent each day and melting snow to drink and cook with. But it wasn’t enough. Amid the difficult conditions, Chandi fell behind her target mileage.
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