Experience: I walked 922 miles across Antarctica, solo, in 70 days

Preet Chandi: ‘I remember thinking: it’s going to get easier. But it didn’t.’ Photograph: Stephen Burke/The Guardian

It started with a half marathon, when I was at university in London in 2011. I then progressed to marathons and ultramarathons, doing a different event each year. I’d wanted to do something big for a while, but didn’t know what. In the summer of 2018, someone suggested an Antarctica expedition. At first I thought: not a chance.

But the idea stayed in my mind. In April the next year, I ran the Marathon des Sables, a 156-mile ultra marathon in the Sahara Desert. I thought: if I can do that, then I can do Antarctica.