By David Schaffer BBC News Online, Manchester

Noel came in sixth in the race, after dodging landing planes

No amount of training for the North Pole Marathon could have prepared Manchester runner Noel Bresland for having to deal with such an event.

"I managed to get out of the way in good time, but I looked back and saw other competitors completely covered in snow that had been whipped up by the plane," he says.

It is not that the 15 competitors, including Sir Ranulph Fiennes, running the 26.2 miles - had veered off course.

Comedy moment

The ice-packed Arctic runway was part of the three-mile marked out circuit they had been assigned.

It was more their determination to keep running that left them in such a predicament. In fact race organiser Richard Donovan had tried to get them to stop briefly as the plane, carrying the next group of North Pole explorers, landed.

Mr Bresland, 28 and originally from Plymouth, stresses it was "more a comedy moment than anything else."

Looking back on it, it makes me think how little respect and even na�ve we perhaps all were about the conditions Noel Bresland

"Richard was trying to get us to stop to allow the plane to land and then carry on," he says.

"To be honest it was our own fault that we just carried on - and we had at least 30 seconds before the plane actually landed."

He points out they were in no more danger from the plane than the fact they were already running in -45C conditions, which feels quite difficult to argue with.

And it is not as if the "comic" close shave has put the management consultant off further events - especially after coming in sixth out of 15, in under five hours.

He is now planning to run a marathon at the South Pole next year, run more than 200 miles across the desert in the Trans 333 challenge, take to the Himalayas in a 100-mile stage race, and run a marathon on a treadmill in a sauna.

"It's not quite like the North Pole marathon has decided me to do them - basically I've been thinking since deciding to do it, 'If I'm going to do one, I was going to do the rest'," he says.

'Fantastic people'

Of course this is the man who in training for the North Pole ran a marathon in a freezer warehouse on a treadmill a month before the race, mainly to raise the profile of his �10,000 fundraising bid for the Children with Leukaemia charity.

As he said at the time, it is "stubbornness" that drives him on and it was that kind of attitude that left him less concerned about the risks he was facing running on sometimes only six metres of ice above 12,000 feet of Arctic Ocean.

"Above everything else I was particularly looking forward to talking to the other people; to be honest they are some of the most fantastic people I have ever had the privilege to meet," he says.

The competitors were flown in to the site of the run

It was those kind of experiences that got him through when he tripped over his special racing snowshoes and ended up face down in the snow with cramp which left him unable to move for about 30 seconds.

"In a situation like that, you have to just laugh because obviously with cramp you have to think relax, otherwise the cramp will just get worse," he remembers.

"But looking back on it, it makes me think how little respect and event na�ve we perhaps all were about the conditions - everything went fine but it could have been very different."

But considering such dangers "for about three seconds", he looks forward to the challenges ahead.

More difficult to deal with is finding the time to take part in them whilst working as a management consultant - often up to 16 hours a day - and preparing for his wedding in July.

'Ego boost'

"I'm sure there will be time to do a marathon while I'm on honeymoon," Noel jokes.

It is also his increasing dedication to raising money for CWL that has also upped the ante to carry on with events.

"You can't help feeling a bit caught up in the emotional side of what these children are having to put up with," he says.

"It's all a bit of an ego boost I have to admit, but the more I do to raise the profile of the charity it puts me in good stead to put these other crazy things I want to do in action."