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A month ago today

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I stood there:

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90 degrees south, the top of

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the bottom of the world, the Geographic South Pole.

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And I stood there beside two very good friends of mine,

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Richard Weber and Kevin Vallely.

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Together we had just broken the world speed record

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for a trek to the South Pole.

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It took us 33 days,

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23 hours and 55 minutes to get there.

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We shaved five days off the previous best time.

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And in the process, I became the first person in history

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to make the entire 650-mile journey,

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from Hercules Inlet to South Pole,

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solely on feet, without skis.

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Now, many of you are probably saying, "Wait a sec,

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is this tough to do?"

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(Laughter)

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Imagine, if you will,

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dragging a sled, as you just saw in that video clip,

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with 170 pounds of gear,

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in it everything you need to survive on your Antarctic trek.

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It's going to be 40 below, every single day.

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You'll be in a massive headwind.

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And at some point you're going to have to cross these cracks in the ice,

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these crevasses.

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Some of them have a very precarious thin footbridge underneath them

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that could give way at a moment's notice,

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taking your sled, you, into the abyss, never to be seen again.

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The punchline to your journey? Look at the horizon.

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Yes, it's uphill the entire way,

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because the South Pole is at 10,000 feet,

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and you're starting at sea level.

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Our journey did not, in fact, begin at Hercules Inlet,

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where frozen ocean meets the land of Antarctica.

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It began a little less than two years ago.

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A couple of buddies of mine and I

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had finished a 111-day run across the entire Sahara desert.

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And while we were there we learned

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the seriousness of the water crisis in Northern Africa.

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We also learned that many of the issues facing the people of Northern Africa

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affected young people the most.

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I came home to my wife after 111 days of running in the sand,

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and I said, "You know, there's no doubt if this bozo can get across the desert,

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we are capable of doing anything we set our minds to."

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But if I'm going to continue doing these adventures, there has to be

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a reason for me to do them

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beyond just getting there.

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Around that time I met an extraordinary human being,

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Peter Thum, who inspired me with his actions.

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He's trying to find and solve water issues, the crisis around the world.

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His dedication inspired me to come up with this expedition:

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a run to the South Pole

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where, with an interactive website,

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I will be able to bring young people, students and teachers from around the world

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on board the expedition with me,

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as active members.

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So we would have a live website, that every single day of the 33 days,

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we would be blogging, telling stories of,

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you know, depleted ozone forcing us to cover our faces,

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or we will burn.

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Crossing miles and miles of sastrugi --

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frozen ice snowdrifts that could be hip-deep.

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I'm telling you, crossing these things with 170-pound sled,

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that sled may as well have weighed 1,700 pounds,

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because that's what it felt like.

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We were blogging to this live website daily

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to these students that were tracking us as well,

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about 10-hour trekking days,

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15-hour trekking days,

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sometimes 20 hours of trekking daily to meet our goal.

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We'd catch cat-naps at 40 below on our sled, incidentally.

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In turn, students,

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people from around the world, would ask us questions.

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Young people would ask the most amazing questions.

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One of my favorite: It's 40 below, you've got to go to the bathroom,

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where are you going to go and how are you going to do it?

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I'm not going to answer that. But I will answer some of the more popular questions.

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Where do you sleep? We slept in a tent that was very low to the ground,

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because the winds on Antarctica were so extreme, it would blow anything else away.

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What do you eat? One of my favorite dishes on expedition:

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butter and bacon. It's about a million calories.

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We were burning about 8,500 a day,

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so we needed it.

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How many batteries do you carry for all the equipment that you have?

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Virtually none. All of our equipment, including film equipment,

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was charged by the sun.

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And do you get along? I certainly hope so,

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because at some point or another on this expedition,

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one of your teammates is going to have to take a very big needle,

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and put it in an infected blister, and drain it for you.

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But seriously, seriously, we did get along,

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because we had a common goal of wanting to inspire these young people.

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They were our teammates! They were inspiring us.

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The stories we were hearing got us to the South Pole.

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The website worked brilliantly as a two-way street of communication.

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Young people in northern Canada, kids in an elementary school,

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dragging sleds across the school-yard,

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pretending they were Richard, Ray and Kevin. Amazing.

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We arrived at the South Pole. We huddled into that tent,

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45 below that day, I'll never forget it.

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We looked at each other with these looks

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of disbelief at what we had just completed.

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And I remember looking at the guys thinking,

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"What do I take from this journey?" You know? Seriously.

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That I'm this uber-endurance guy?

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As I stand here today talking to you guys,

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I've been running for the grand sum of five years.

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And a year before that I was a pack-a-day smoker,

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living a very sedentary lifestyle.

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What I take from this journey, from my journeys,

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is that, in fact,

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within every fiber of my belief standing here,

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I know that we can make the impossible possible.

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I'm learning this at 40.

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Can you imagine? Seriously, can you imagine?

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I'm learning this at 40 years of age.

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Imagine being 13 years old,

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hearing those words, and believing it.

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Thank you very much. Thank you.

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(Applause)