Um, Marathon?

[The South Pole from a Runner's Perspective]

Photo Credit: unknown

"So, are you running the marathon?"

Um, marathon? That sounds like a terrible idea. "No."

So went the dialogue after running the race around the world. My friend and ultra-runner Sarah was organizing the south pole marathon, and wanted me to run.

The next day while walking back from the telescope, I started thinking - usually a bad idea. Hmm, marathon? That's crazy! I don't run. I don't train. It would be completely ridiculous. But it would be kind of cool... and it shouldn't be that hard, as long as I just don't stop. Hmm, I'm good at suffering. Maybe I should try...

By the time I reached the station I had convinced myself to run in the marathon.

My extensive training regime consisted of working on physics 14 hours a day, stuffing myself at 3 to 4 meals, and that's about it. By Friday, I figured I should run at least once during the week, so I ran 2.5 miles Friday morning. Apparently I don't taper down, I taper up.

Saturday morning came around early. I didn't sleep well because I was super nervous and worried about missing my alarm. A peanut-butter sandwich and tea breakfast got me started, but my stomach was in butterflies.

Out at the geographic south pole, around 15 runners gathered, with a number of spectators and helpers. And at 10am we were off!

[The start of the marathon]

Photo Credit: unknown

I quickly learned two things:

1) Humans are weird. Why would you think it was a good idea to get up and go running outside in -15 deg F weather? There is no gain in it, you are not chasing down prey, you will not make any money. All you will do is expend an excess amount of energy and suffer for 5 hours. Humans are weird.

2) I am not a runner. I can run, and I have good endurance, but I am not trained to run. This became more and more evident as the day went on.

We started by running the Race Around the World backwards, which we did in 25 min (as compared to my race pace of 21 min). The remainder of the course consisted of 5 laps back-and-forth along the airplane runway.

[Me (Red Jacket) and Sarah on the initial Race Around the World section]

Photo Credit: unknown

The first lap was great. I felt great. "No problem!" I was thinking about mountains in New Zealand that I wanted to climb, work, conferences I might attend, the beautiful weather.

[Lap 1, feeling great!]

Photo Credit: unknown

Lap two was quite nice. I was playing music tunes in my head, high-fiving runners as we saw each other, and generally enjoying myself.

Lap three (3.5 hours into this thing) was ok for running down, but my legs were starting to get tired and stiff. Coming back up lap 3 the realization hit that I was only half-way done with the runway section, and I began to notice that my legs were getting very stiff and I still had several more hours to run. My psyche had reached a new low point.

[Lap 3, feeling not as great!]

Photo Credit: unknown

Lap four I started focusing on the pain of my legs, and not thinking about much else. "Can I have a new pair of legs?" was my response to the friendly people at the aid station who gave me hot things to drink and asked if I needed anything.

[My World View]

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Lap five was pain. My cognition narrowed down to two things: the end of the runway and keeping my legs moving. I could barely think about anything else. Sarah caught up to me on the last lap. She was in great shape, chipper as always. I realized that I had not been winded the entire run, but my legs hurt so bad I couldn't run much faster than a shuffle. Sarah took off, and I had no illusions of keeping up. At the end of the runway, I realized that I was the last runner still going. Most people had stopped at the half-marathon, a few had run an extra lap, but only 4 of us were still running for the full marathon, and I was now taking up the rear. On the last lap back up the runway, I stopped no less than 4 times to stretch. Then I would look up at the aid station, take a deep breath, and keep shuffling along.

[The Aid station - thanks for the support!]

Photo Credit: unknown

Finally arriving at the aid station, I only had half of a mile to go. My legs hurt so bad! But just muscle pain, and muscles heal. No joints, nothing that felt like I was actually doing damage. I kept shuffling along. Finally, I made it to the south pole and broke the red ribbon signaling the end of the marathon. 5 hours 38 min after starting, I completed my first marathon.

Was it fun? Hmm, the first part was fun - "type 2" fun. Was it worth it? Definitely. Will I be running marathons in the future? There had better be a really good reason before I run another marathon... and next time I'm going to train!