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Marathon Men

Aired November 03, 2003 - 13:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's not completely over. There's still the post-race interview, right? And that takes us to London where Sir Ranulph is sitting in a very comfortable chair, somewhat rested, we hope, and ready to talk about his incredible adventure.
Rand, good to see you.

SIR RANULPH FIENNES, ROUND-THE-WORLD MARATHON RUNNER: I can't see you, but good to talk to you.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'm smiling, believe me, it's a pleasure to have you. I've got to ask you, and so many of us are wondering this, why? Why did you do this?

FIENNES: Well, it was Dr. Mike Stroud's idea, and I just didn't say no when he phoned up at the time. And he has these ideas, and they are normally pretty good ones. I'm not sure now if that one was a particularly good one, because it was pretty exhausting most of the time. But in between the marathons, it was quite enjoyable.

PHILLIPS: Well, here's what's amazing, you had a heart attack five months ago. We want to point out, of course, Stroud is your doctor. There you were, side by side. Was he constantly in a panic checking you, and wanting to do tests and making sure you were OK?

FIENNES: No, we had a defibrillator, a miniaturized defibrillator with him at all times, and also at end of each marathon, we had blood tests by the organizers in the cities to find out what was going wrong with our bodies and how much muscle damage was taking place.

And after the Singapore marathon which was around about half way through, we had quite a shock, because my blood enzymes showed that the muscle damage was 50 times above what would normally be expected on a single marathon, and in Mike Stroud's case, it was 500 times, and that was why he was urinating blood, and he had severe diarrhea and feeling like he was fainting and so on and so forth, on top of the fact he lost all his toe nails and there was poison coming out of his toes. So he was in a pretty bad way by halfway through the marathons.

PHILLIPS: It just seems excruciating. So tell me about how you motivated each other? How did you keep each other going? Why did you keep going?

FIENNES: Well, we are very sort of competitive towards each other and always have been in 15 years of doing polar expeditions, and I suppose the idea is if you if you feel that you can't keep going, which sometimes we do, inside yourself, you say I'm not going to stop until he does, and if he's saying the same thing to himself, then as a team, we're going to go quite far.

PHILLIPS: Amazing. Well, I'm sitting here looking at just what you needed as you took on the marathon, the bottled war, the bananas, the high protein bar, the energy drinks. What about after the marathon, what did you need? Probably a hot bath.

FIENNES: A hot bath, yes, although in actual fact, a cold compress on the limbs would be better, but not so comfortable, but you basically want lots of sleep and a hell of a lot of food, even if you don't feel like it, you've got to cram it in, because in some cases, as soon as you finish the marathon, you have to fly to a different continent and start rung the next marathon within nine hours.

PHILLIPS: Well, this doesn't surprise me, because I know back in 1968, you received a bravery medal while serving in the military. We think you deserve another. Ranulph, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

FIENNES: Thanks very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 3, 2003 - 13:47   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's not completely over. There's still the post-race interview, right? And that takes us to London where Sir Ranulph is sitting in a very comfortable chair, somewhat rested, we hope, and ready to talk about his incredible adventure.
Rand, good to see you.

SIR RANULPH FIENNES, ROUND-THE-WORLD MARATHON RUNNER: I can't see you, but good to talk to you.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'm smiling, believe me, it's a pleasure to have you. I've got to ask you, and so many of us are wondering this, why? Why did you do this?

FIENNES: Well, it was Dr. Mike Stroud's idea, and I just didn't say no when he phoned up at the time. And he has these ideas, and they are normally pretty good ones. I'm not sure now if that one was a particularly good one, because it was pretty exhausting most of the time. But in between the marathons, it was quite enjoyable.

PHILLIPS: Well, here's what's amazing, you had a heart attack five months ago. We want to point out, of course, Stroud is your doctor. There you were, side by side. Was he constantly in a panic checking you, and wanting to do tests and making sure you were OK?

FIENNES: No, we had a defibrillator, a miniaturized defibrillator with him at all times, and also at end of each marathon, we had blood tests by the organizers in the cities to find out what was going wrong with our bodies and how much muscle damage was taking place.

And after the Singapore marathon which was around about half way through, we had quite a shock, because my blood enzymes showed that the muscle damage was 50 times above what would normally be expected on a single marathon, and in Mike Stroud's case, it was 500 times, and that was why he was urinating blood, and he had severe diarrhea and feeling like he was fainting and so on and so forth, on top of the fact he lost all his toe nails and there was poison coming out of his toes. So he was in a pretty bad way by halfway through the marathons.

PHILLIPS: It just seems excruciating. So tell me about how you motivated each other? How did you keep each other going? Why did you keep going?

FIENNES: Well, we are very sort of competitive towards each other and always have been in 15 years of doing polar expeditions, and I suppose the idea is if you if you feel that you can't keep going, which sometimes we do, inside yourself, you say I'm not going to stop until he does, and if he's saying the same thing to himself, then as a team, we're going to go quite far.

PHILLIPS: Amazing. Well, I'm sitting here looking at just what you needed as you took on the marathon, the bottled war, the bananas, the high protein bar, the energy drinks. What about after the marathon, what did you need? Probably a hot bath.

FIENNES: A hot bath, yes, although in actual fact, a cold compress on the limbs would be better, but not so comfortable, but you basically want lots of sleep and a hell of a lot of food, even if you don't feel like it, you've got to cram it in, because in some cases, as soon as you finish the marathon, you have to fly to a different continent and start rung the next marathon within nine hours.

PHILLIPS: Well, this doesn't surprise me, because I know back in 1968, you received a bravery medal while serving in the military. We think you deserve another. Ranulph, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

FIENNES: Thanks very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com