Thursday, April 25, 2013

Race day, part 3

When I got back to the center point of the course and started toward the actual research bases the path was smoother but had longer hills, and those were covered with fist-sized frozen rocks which really hurt the neuroma in my foot. The course was poorly marked on this loop, with flags on sticks but the researchers also use flags on sticks to mark their paths, and  there were no arrows at any of the turns.

There was nobody in front or behind me that I could see, so at one point I realized I was at the airport and was not supposed to be there!  I backtracked and found the turn I had missed. Then about a mile later I missed another turn, ran about half a mile and found another woman who couldn't figure out where the race course was, so we backtracked together and found the next turn. We were able to warn some people behind us, and they really appreciated it. I figured I ran an extra 2 miles due to missing the turns.

Back at the center point I used the "bathroom" and got some water and headed out to the first section again. It was as bad as I remembered! My ankle started hurting from all the twisting and almost falling. When I was at the top of a hill the view was wonderful, but I could only look around when I stopped, otherwise I had to keep my eyes on the ground to watch for ice.

When I got near the turnaround I didn't know where it was and had to ask some Russian scientists who happened to be working near the course- they knew what I meant and they pointed around the corner and finally there it was. Slipping and sliding back to the finish I was feeling very disappointed to not do the whole marathon but relieved to be done with tripping and slipping. There were a few support crew at the finish so I got a couple of cheers but otherwise the finish was not too exciting. A friend was working as part of the supporters so I got my camera and she took a photo of me with the big library card. I walked around a bit and saw some penguins and suddenly started getting very cold. I put on my big red overalls and boots and waited until one of the zodiac boats was ready to go back to the boat, then hopped in.

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