race day, part 2

Because the crew did not have much time to set up due to bad weather, there was only one "bathroom", the blue tarp at the middle of the two out and back sections. With my concerns about intestinal issues that was not good news! We each had to bring 3 water bottles and there were 3 places we could drop them, so they had to be carried the first time we did each of the two sections so we could leave them. The first loop went out about 2.4 miles then back to the start/finish, then the second loop went the opposite way but was about the same mileage.

With only about 60 runners the start was casual, and within the first 1/4 mile I saw someone fall.The course follows paths used by the researchers who drive vehicles with Caterpillar treads to navigate the mud, rocks, snow, water, and hills. Due to the hard freeze the day before, the mud was like cement, and the water, of course, became ice. Running on frozen Caterpillar tread imprints was hard and my toe kept catching on the grooves between the treads. The ice and snow also made it very difficult to run, as did the constant hills, and some places had such big areas of ice that we had to go way around and off the course to get past the worst slippery parts. Most people walked on the really bad parts, and I stopped counting how many times I almost fell.

Early in the race I realized that falling was quite likely for me, and being a small-boned older woman, it would not end well! I didn't want to ruin the rest of my trip by getting hurt, and I certainly didn't want to miss the next week of Antarctica, so I decided to change to the half marathon. I knew that getting tired later in the race would make it even more dangerous for me so I accepted that doing the full race was not a good idea. As it turned out, they had a record number of runners change to the half marathon during the race because it was so difficult and dangerous.