With a wind chill of -20°C, snow blindness and frostbite to compete with, the Antarctic Ice Marathon might just be the toughest, maddest, most perilous 26.2 miles of your life. Against such heavily stacked odds, MH ventured south to join the men and women running wild at the end of the earth.
My brain is sending words to my mouth but they aren’t coming out properly. The left side of my face is numb with cold, my lips feel like they’ve been glued together and I’m slurring badly. I know there’s a huge ice-topped mountain off to my left but it is hidden behind a veil of cloud and mist kicked up by a fierce, blinding wind. Visibility is now down to less than 10m, and it is increasingly difficult to keep sight of the little blue flags marking the safe route of passage against the vast and disorienting white canvas. The whole area is an active glacier; between here and the finish line there are crevasses big enough to swallow a large vehicle. Two hours in and with more than half the distance still to go, the wisdom of running a marathon in the world’s coldest, bleakest territory is seriously questionable.
But for those of a certain temperament, the chance to run 26.2 miles in the planet’s last true wilderness is too great to pass up. Taking place at the foot of the Ellsworth Mountains, participants in the annual Antarctic Ice Marathon must compete with a wind chill of -20°C and a max wind speed of 25 knots. It is not so much a race, then, as the ultimate endurance event. And at £12,000 a head, only serious competitors need apply.
INTO THE WILD
Irish ultrarunner Richard Donovan ran in the Antarctic for the first time over a decade ago, as part of a quest to run seven ultra marathons on seven continents in a year. One of those was the first and only race to the South Pole, which he won. Where most would have packed away the thermals and dined out on such achievements, Donovan saw opportunity, establishing the Antarctic Ice Marathon in 2006.
This story is from the March 2017 edition of Men's Health UK.
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This story is from the March 2017 edition of Men's Health UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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