MARK IN POLE RUN

From Mirror - 17/12/2003 (127 words)
DARREN MOONEY

A BELFAST student will become the first blind person to run a marathon in the North Pole. Mark Pollock, 27, has been training in an industrial freezer for

the challenge next April. Mark, who lost his sight in 2000, is a student at Trinity College , Dublin . He said: "I'm going to the North Pole with 30 people,

who will all have interesting stories. And it's a place that I'll be likely to never have this chance again. "I began training in a combination of treadmill

running and I'm trying to get my own freezer. "My trainer and guide wants enough room in it to simulate conditions." Temperatures will fall to -50C with

frostbite and hypothermia being the main dangers.