Antarctica

We experienced the relief and exhilaration of taking off from South America and finally landing in King George Island Antarctica yesterday afternoon. Touching down in the airstrip was a seminal moment by itself. 

However, we didn’t get to start the race for another couple of hours due to logistics with the different countries’ base camps, and the race organizer had to abruptly alter the course to stay away from one of the bases. Unfortunately this meant doing 10 loops of the most hilly and difficult terrain on the original course. Apparently it was cumulative of close to 3000 feet of elevation over the loops. It also didn’t help that three of us took a wrong turn on the first lap and ended up about .2 miles behind others.

Once I got going, though, I felt pretty good and tried to set a pace that was equivalent to my other races on this trip. Despite this being by far the trickiest with technical, weather and hilly challenges, I had my best performance by far - in any race ever. I had paced myself through this journey, and while I had pains with different parts of my body at different times, it was always one at a time and then that particular pain disappeared. So, I pushed myself to the limit on this one and came in with a time of 3:56, and what I think of as my first ever race win. 

While it was a bit disappointing to not get into Antarctica the previous day to complete the eight marathons in the eight days, I enjoyed the rollercoaster ride of emotions that had a dip after an amazing seven days, but culminated in a high in Antarctica. 

In the next day or so, I will write some final thoughts on the variety of experiences across the world in the last nine days, with micro highlights in each location. For example, from the interaction with the people running with us in the streets of Cairo to the daybreak over the Singapore strait to hobbling around 26.2 miles in NYC. 
In the end, it wasn’t 8/8/8 but 8/8/9, and I subsequently found out that I had run 4:00 and 38 seconds in Singapore just down to clock management. These minor flaws may add to the character of this experience and make it a beautiful thing. Happily, I relaxed and soaked in the the experience including the support and wishes coming in from back home.