Skiing in the Dark - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 205

The result was a renewed sense of purpose. Starting out anew
helped me to draw my mental focus back to the immediate
future and it made me feel more centred, more steadfast, more
determined.
Right from the outset I had been careful to limit my
anticipation to the most pressing goal. On the Ross Ice Shelf I
had thought only of the Leverett, on the plateau I had thought
only of the Pole, leaving the Pole I had thought only of Thiels.
At no point had I allowed myself to think of the whole; it was
too big and too intimidating to think about all at once. Now,
even though I was physically close to the end of my journey,
I found that the 'end' was still too daunting to dwell on. My
ability to process a goal had nothing to do with the number of
miles or the number of days involved - instead it had everything
to do with the importance I attached to the achievement of
that goal. The end was so important that I couldn't process it
yet. I had to focus on each step rather than the end result - and
there were still plenty of steps to take.
It took me just three days to cover the eighty-second degree.
Although I had been feeling ever fitter and stronger physically
as I lost height from the Pole, I had skied a minimum of twenty
nautical miles a day for the past twenty days without a break
and I noticed the effects. Fatigue made my eyes feel gritty and
my limbs heavy so that I frequently found myself hunched over
my ski poles as I skied. In the evenings I skipped jobs so that
I could get to sleep quicker and one evening I got dangerously
close to falling asleep where I sat as I waited for snow to melt
on the stove in the tent. The next morning I was so tired when
I opened my eyes that I resolved immediately to give myself a
day off. As I lay there, the plangent noise of the wind outside