Debby Jones, whose 36-year-old husband, Philip, would have received around pounds 5,000 if his attacker had only broken his leg, has been told she can have only pounds 1,100 funeral expenses and no compensation for herself or her sons, both aged under 10. Because she decided to try and run her husband's fishing boat after his death, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board has ruled that she has not suffered any hardship and cannot therefore have any money.Lawyers attacked the decision and are appealing for compensation for Mrs Jones and her sons, who live in Milford Haven in west Wales.The appeal is the latest of a number of challenges to controversial decisions by the CICB. A mother of two young children whose husband was kicked to death in the street by a stranger has been told she can have no criminal injuries compensation because she kept his fishing boat. "It is beautiful here at the top of Canada," Ms Hamilton said. Temperatures have risen by 25 degrees since Penguin Alpha set out in temperatures of minus 50C.

This is less debilitating for the final team, but also means the ice-cap is cracking. "Part of the dilemma is that if we carry extra food and water, to keep us going for longer, that will weigh us down so we won't be able to cover so much ground each day."If we run out of supplies without reaching the Pole we'll just have to keep going without wasting time sleeping."The women will also be racing the effects of spring. "It sounds like a conspiracy to keep the North Pole for men," she said. Whatever the truth of the theory, it appears polar bears are far too sensible to venture as far north as Penguin Echo will go.As a member of Echo, Ms Hamilton shares the pressure of being in the final team. "The others who have gone before have done such an amazing job that we are all terrified of letting them down," she said. "We made it a relay so that ordinary women who couldn't afford to take months off work could take part," she explained.She is mystified by the idea that women do not take to the Arctic because polar bears smell them more easily they do male explorers and might attack them. "Because the geographical North Pole moves all the time it will be a very private experience, a different Pole from anyone else's."A keen explorer of far-flung terrain, the 33-year-old film financier's dream grew from a fascination with deserts into a desire to achieve something no one else had.

Still others use adjoining chambers or a honeycomb effect so that shocks can be distributed along the shoe. Midsoles are often made with air capsules, or gel using "energy return" chambers designed to cushion the shock generated when your foot hits the ground - which may otherwise travel up to your knees or lower back, with potentially painful results.Some manufacturers use a shock-absorbent, spongy material in the midsole Others use a hi-tech foam. Many of today's more expensive trainers have a "midsole" between the upper (toe box, heel box and fastenings) and "outside" or rubber bottom of the shoe. "This is the new underfoot cushioning and stabilising system," explains Mr White."It has been tested on more than 700 runners over thousands of miles and is better than and dramatically different from anything out there."What is "out there" is already pretty sophisticated. "But every foot is a different shape; every individual moves differently and has different needs." His aim was to make a running shoe which could supply all these needs, and with the new DMX Series 2000 he believes he has done it.These trainers feel as light as a feather and look entirely synthetic, with semi-transparent blue soles rather like outsized bubble wrap.

Sometimes, real live athletes come to play basketball in the gym which is part of the laboratory, so that high-speed videos can record and monitor the performance of their shoes."There have been dramatic improvements in footwear for athletes over the last 20 years," says Spencer White. "Your foot is an extremely complicated mechanism, and if it's not a stable platform it can cause pain in the knee and as far as your lower back."Proper footwear protects you from injuries such as planar fasciitis (sore heels caused by impact or not enough support) and shin splints (aches in the shins caused by lack of cushioning and stability).Mr White's Human Performance Engineering Laboratory also has computer simulator machines which twist and bend and pound the latest Reebok prototypes in the new science of bio-engineering. As Reebok's Director of Research Engineering, he warns that without decent trainers many of us who do aerobics, running or other sports would be hobbling around injured. "Your foot bone is connected to your leg bone, and so on up the chain," he says. So are they really necessary? I put this heretical idea to Spencer White, a genial American boffin who runs a hi-tech laboratory in Boston peopled by jogging robots in Reeboks and professors from MIT. After all, the ancient Greeks didn't wear trainers to run the original marathon.