SankarAthlete: March 2024

How did it start ?

What really?? A marathon at Antarctica? Is this even real, those were some of the questions that people ask when mentioned about travelling for a race at Antartica
I was at least aware of the fact that such a race exists, which learnt about from my fellow runners from Hyderabad India and have heard first hand information of all those ambitious runners who were way elder than me and that instilled for the fact that It was doable.
I never took it serious to go try do these races, obviously for couple of main reasons, primarily being the cost involved around the whole saga and secondly on the logistics involved right from getting a visa, expenses for travel, lodging and more so which follows.
Though I let go of my thought from this race, I was focusing on the world majors, I got lucky with two back to back races which I got into with lottery, berlin and tokyo and timed entry to chicago, I learnt the art of trying to do the necessary stuffs to make it a successful completion in all respects from visa, travel, racing, touring and back.

Old time buddy with new goals

While I was churning the daily grill and training for random races, just focusing on sheerly trying to get another qualifier after two failed attempts to get through the cut after no having enough buffer time to register for Boston, and obviously not getting lucky to get a spot in new york or boston, trying to do random races
That is when one of my old time running buddy, who was really fast and more serious into running, who was one of the reasons I continue my running habit after the first few races, came up with unique plan stating about the marathon at greenland, i.e Polar circle marathon, which I have covered with detailed report HERE.
During the tenure of the stay at greenland for post race activities, was hearing a lot of concerns on people waiting for to get into Antartica marathon and randomly hopped on to marathon tours and travels site to find out if they have any spots open for future years.
To my surprise and to many others who were complaining about having to wait for few years before one could get a spot in the antartica marathon, we found open spots for Voyage 1 and voyage 2 for antartica(Mar1-14 / March 15th-30).
With really no hope many of us did submit our request for the open spots and to the surprise after few weeks passing by after returning home , got an confirmation email from the marathon tours of available options and had to choose fro amonst them.
Given that we had a brutal/crazy weather at Greenland and having been able to run a full and Half marathon on consecutive days there at -19C, weather wise Antartica did not feel overwhelming at all.
Knowing for the fact, that the logistics play a major role and with having travelled enough countries with Visa work and reservations around in places of non-native speakers of English, had enough confidence to be able to do with a tour operation.

Eagerly looking forward to another break

After being continuing to work without taking any breaks from work nor from the parttime gig of yoga instruction, was eagerly looking forward to yet another break for this race, though with lot of unknowns.
With the heights of procrastination, kept postponing the whole process required to be done to really late in the cycle, realized that I need to get my Argentinian visa stamped due to a layover at Buenos Aires. Applied with all particulars to the Argentinian embassy, with a unique way of getting interviewed over a WhatsApp video call for visa interview :)
Managed to get my visa stamping done by March 8th or so for a travel due by March 14th, was really a close call.
Managed to only find any time at all to pack my bags for the travel with just shy of 16 hours before departure. Finally got dropped of at airport by one of my friends , starting my long travel with multiple hops and various modes of transport

Buenos Aires and India

After a short hop to Atlanta from seattle , managed to get some of my assignments completed nad completed reading a book "Eat the frog" which has been pending for long time.
Somehow I feel that I am able to totally focus and complete reading books during the flight time. I wish I could get this level of isolation in normal life, which will let to complete tasks without any distraction.
Managed to get couple of written assignments complete, putting pen to paper and writing pages over pages has been the first time in last 15 years, good push of motor skills and allows mind to eye co-ordination with unused areas used extensively
Hopped on a flight to Buenos Aires from Atlanta and that was almost a 10 hours flight, as usual crossing multiple time zones and keeping the mind super confused, managed to get some sleep during that leg, with utmost content of finishing reading book yet again.
Unlike the other races where I manage to take all the effort from registering, booking tickets and plan on accomodation and transportation myself, along with lanugage barrier in some countries, here we had the marathon tours and travels folks, taking care of every single aspect end to end more importantly dealing with vegetarian food.
Had a charter bus pick us and drop off at the hotel after a 4 hour long city tour , visiting musoleums, cathederal, museums, I should say that a lot of emotions that come from the folks is about how low they are paid and overall on a lower enconomic state at the lower end of the spectrum.
Explored the city with a 5k run on all 3 days of stay at Buenos aires and walked around more than 7 miles trying explore the city by foot
Managed to end up in a big handicraft market on Sunday, which had a lot of specialities, right from Matte- a green leaf based tea in a small pot carved from Squash , leather products, local paintings and what not, it’s almost more than 2 kms of stretch on a single street where the whole market is set up.

Travel to Ushuaia and boarding

On the third day, we had to start early at 6:30 AM to catch our flights to Ushuaia, the southern most part of Argentina, from where we board the cruise ship.
It was a 4 hour chartered flight with all 170 odd runners in the flight along with the tour organizers, flying out from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia.
Once we landed we had around 1.5 hours to have our lunch and roam around the streets of ushaia.
We managed to grab a decent lunch and rushed to the visitor center where you get stamped for your visit to Ushuaia. Honestly that is the first time ever I managed to stamp myself on my passport, a stamping for a visit.
Rushed back the tour company's office, for having us dropped at the harbor.
I was overly excited , since this was my first ever sailing and curious on what to expect for the next few days to come.
We had to surrender our passports with a declaration form signed, and collect our expedition jacket, which we were to use for all our ventures outside the ship and were directed towards to our cabin, which was in the lower deck, with each cabin being shared with yet another individual, which is yet another avenue for mingling and getting to know and share diverse thoughts, bouncing back ideas, which is a great avenue to know diverse cultures around the world.

Sailing, Drake proofing and navigation

As much as warned by many folks, about the potential sea sickness that can hit folks, with me not having any experience with it, I wasn't sure on what to expect.
Since I anyways managed to get some scolpomine patch(a small round plaster which has some medication) to be stuck behind the ear, which will take 4 hours to be to start taking effect.
We were set to hit the drake pass(one huge section of water body, between the short of ushaia and moving south, which has a heavy wind currents, which usually causes the water to be really choppy). That in turn makes the vessel to oscillate too much, causing weird experiences in passengers.
Soon the vessel set off to sail and once we settled in our cabin, we had a emergency drill which was explained in advance, we had to dress appropriately along with life jacket from the cabin, and literally mimic the process to walk up to the top level.
After the drill, we a quick orientation on the itinerary from the days to come and introduction to the crew staff, right from the chef, facilities team, the whole support team in fact.
Was really surprised to see a bunch of Indian crew members part of the kitchen, which gave me good hope to find some vegetarian food
We were served with dinner at 7 PM , pretty much every single day, and was really surprised to see spicy Indian food, including, rajma, dal makhani and what not, pleasantly delighted to get those, in comparison to my struggle that I had to find a basic vegetarian food back in Greenland in October last year.
We were briefed that the forecast of winds and the probability of rough weather was really low, and it was indeed not so bad as it was explained by some of the previous year runners, it was still quite a movement during sleep as we sailed past the drake pass overnight.
With all stuffs set on ground, we had enough sounds coming through the night, since anything loose and dangling was pretty much making noise with the enough movement while we crossed the drake's pass.
We did sail for next two days and pretty much similar routine, with some sessions covered around what to expect in antartica, details about ocean, winds, wildlife

Pre-Race Day and preparation

The day before the race, around evening, we were anchored near the King george island, in a bay, from where we were boarded on to Zodiacs(rubber raft, specialized to handle 12 people), we were taken on ride on water and getting close to the shore, for the first sighting of penguins on land and cute little moves of them.
It was a great pre-cursor to understand on what it felt like being out there with the amount of wind and temperature, which have a good sense of how we would want to dress for the race the next day.
Over the course of sail, managed to get few runs on treadmills on board, which was an unique feeling, the ship is sailing laterally, and we are running perpendicular to that, with the dangling move, which was unique experience of running on the treadmill.
After all the experience on the zodiac ride, we got back to the ship, where there were bio-security checks done on every item that we plan to take it to land for the race.
Based on the rules or IAATO(Antarctic tour operators Association) and Antarctic treaty, with all intentions to keep it a bio secure zone, every single item was inspected, vacuumed, cleaned up. We had to bio-clean the running shoes and also set up with the boots, which is what we used on our rides on Zodiac to shore.

Race Day

With all the preparations done, ended up following my usual pre race routine of setting up everything from head to toe needed for the race.
It is more important here since the weather changes so fast, and should be prepared with supplies needed for all the situations possible.
With all my experience from running in a crazy cold weather at Greenland, I was mentally convince that it is not anywhere cold here and obviously not needing any spike to run.
We had to label our water bottles and fill it with water and bring it along with us on a dry bag. With all set hit the bed for an early rise at 5 AM for break fast.
There were two legs planned, since the number of members allowed on the russian base was limited by some number and also to avoid crowd during the run.
The time limit for full marathon was 6 hours 30 minutes and half probably had at 4 hours 30 minutes. Since the time limit was set in place, the really slow runners were put up in the first leg and half marathon runners and reasonably fast full marathon runners were put into second leg
First leg started their race at 7:00 AM and second leg started at 9 AM. I managed to get myself in the second leg and had some more time to think, plan and worry about the race :)
I hit the Zodiac with all that I need for the race, including the dry bag which pretty much had all supplies from running gear, nutrition, water and water proofing gear.
We had a glimpse of the runners when we hit the shore.
It was kind of two loops to be repeated 3 times for full marathon. Starting from the russian base, we went towards the great wall of china base(2.4 and back, There is truly a small piece of great wall of china placed at the boundary) and pass via the start line and go the opposite side towards the urugay base(2.4 out and back), which is totally 9.6 miles X 3 times to finish full marathon distance.

Start and Initial hour

Second leg runners started right at 9 AM along with the whole group of half marathon runners.
I started to set out quicker not knowing what to expect along the course. We had to carry out water bottles and drop it at 1.2 miles on each direction if we need to use it for later loops.
Went up to 1.2 right behind the lead vehicle, by the time we were around 1.2 miles where we dropped our water bottles, we had already hit 3 hills, only to realize that it is going to recur through the course.
That pretty much made the runners humble and slow down significantly, with the first loop around china side looked daunting, only until we hit the urugayian side which was even more brutal.
There was snow the previous night, which made the whole course white, as opposed to typical trail set up with gravel and rocks.
Since there was no plastic allowed, I had to empty all the gel packs into a gel flask and carry it along to be able to be consumed along the way.
Managed to drop a bottle at 1.2 at china side, so that I could get water every 1.2 miles and also had a bottle left at the start point, which we cross every loop, so two water stops was set.
I was supposed to carry the bottle to the 1.2 miles on the uruguay side, but was too cold with the metal water bottle and didn't end up taking it along.

Snow and Rest of the race

After I finished my first leg on both loops covering 9.6 miles, it started to snow again with flakes on our face and wind picking up which kind of made it more difficult to re adjust all our gear to handle the cold winds.
Unusually, I managed to use a single base layer of merino wool glove through the

race for the majority sections, even when it was snowing.
Around the end of second leg, after it stated to slow down with the snow, it started to drop temperature , feeling numbness in the fingers, only to manage to get some help from the start point from some of the volunteers to help me put up my mitten on top of the liner gloves.
For a majority sections of the race, I was having this unique feeling of the area around me where I was running was all moving in unison, probably the feel of rocking from the ship for the past few days, which was carrying into the run.
That gave me a weird feeling, only to realize that when I opened up my ears to open air, it felt better. Managing to keep my airpods on without the support throughout flipping the support of the beanie on and off.
Since there were series of hills, people started falling trying to climb up and running down the hills, to the extent, the race organizers had to bring hiking poles to allow for people to safely navigate some of the hills, which was turning out to be really slippery with close to 150 runners running up and down through them 3 times in a row.
With all the runs running on top of the rocks and trying to control the foot movement was really really demanding on the lower extremity, right on quads, hamstrings, lower back, but the most of the brunt were taken by the plantar fascia and the arch of the foot, due to the kind of hard landing we were having on the rocks along the course.
After all the hustle around managed to drag myself to the finish in 5 hours 4 minutes with a moving time of 4:54, which was much slower than what I thought that I could accomplish. Couple of thoughts which made me think that I could do better was since I figured out the layering and temperature was in great control, but the never ending undulating hills, with later started being really slippery, derailed the whole time, forcing us to be really slow and cautious after a time.
Post the race, managed to quickly change back to the boots and hopped on the zodiac back to the ship to get a quick shower and head out for the really late lunch at around 4:30 PM.
I felt hungry the whole time during the race, to the extent that I started eating the Cliff shot blocks like a piece of candy, which was the only solid stuff that I was carrying with me.
Had a hefty lunch and post-race orientation done by the race organizers , announcing the overall winners and age group winner information published.
It was soon to be followed with dinner at 7 PM, which we manage to have it at the top level of the ship, where we managed to witness the moon raise, with the glaciers and mountains in the background.

Mikelson Harbor and Brialmont Cove

With really early raise in the morning at 5 for the race and a brutal racing condition, was super tiring to be dozed off within minutes, had a good night sleep only to be woken up by the daily wake up announcement done at 7 AM.
We had to take up to a quick breakfast and followed up by a quick zodiac ride to the first ever landing on a island for sighting the penguins in close proximity.
The ship had cruised away from the Kind George island to the Mikelsen harbor overnight and anchored there at 7 AM, right in time when we had to head out to the breakfast.
We were able to capture the penguins in all forms, particularly Gentoo Penguins, which were ample in number along with different kind of Seals comfortably napping on top of the icebergs on the water.
There was also a huge collection of whale bones in close sighting. The huge colonies of penguins and their cute ways of walking and feasting on krills and their unique way of swimming is a delight to watch in really close proximity.
We get to sail right after lunch and moved to Brialmont Cove, where we set out on zodiacs trying to explore the sighting of whales in a large quantity.
The expedition team managed to find a spot to anchor the ship around Brialmont Cove, where there were at least 20 to 30 humpback whales.
We had one of the humpback whale circles around our zodiac for quite some time, demonstrating its acrobatic skills, was able to snap and record from a 2 feet distance right underneath our zodiac.
That was one of the closest encounters we had and good captures for memories and stories to talk about.
Every single day there were one of the lectures about krills, types of penguins, A23 A, Colors of iceberg etc…
There are highly qualified and diverse professionals from the field of oceanography, wildlife, study about weather and what not, who are on-board sharing their knowledge and experience for everybody onboard.
We managed to retire with at most content and tiredness from all the activities through the day and that too the day after the race.

Danco Island and Neko Harbor

The usual schedule followed was to anchor the ship at around 7 AM and starts the day with buffet breakfast followed by some activity on Zodiac at 8:30 AM for couple of groups and other couple groups get to listen to one of the lectures onboard.
Similar pattern in the afternoon after a 12-noon lunch and yet another external venture with an activity and back
We were anchored near Danco Island where the key attractions were big colonies of Gentoo Penguins
It is also a viewpoint on Erera Channel and good to take a split zodiac cruise to sight more whales and ice.
Danco islands are breeding ground for Gentoo penguins and gulls. Some sights of Weddell seals were possible and walked around the island with a steep hike using some hiking poles which was also slippery to come back down after a hike
We managed to get out on a cruise with zodiacs to sight some of the fur seals and some sightings of whales as well.
The afternoon venture to the Neko Harbor which is a inlet of the Antarctic Peninsula on Andvord Bay, Situated on the west coast of Graham Land.
Neko Harbor was our first Continental Landing (landing in the part of land which is part of the main Antarctic Continent)
Here again we had photo opportunities with the huge colonies of Gentoo penguins along with the continental landing boards.
Managed to spend time with a 1 mile hike up and down witnessing the Feeding pattern of the Gentoo penguins and all acrobatic and funny maneuvers of the penguins.
We also managed to sight 6 big fur seals seated close enough, happily putting on weight for the breeding season ahead in summer.

Enterprise Island and Portal Point

We ended up with an anchorage at Enterprise Island which is 2.4 kms long at the northeast end of Nansen Island in Wilhelmenia Bay, off the west coast of Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula
The islands became well known to whalers operating in the area in the early 1900s and the names North Nansen Island and South Nansen Island were used to distinguish them.
We managed to visit the Wrecked ship remains of Guvernoren, which was built in 1891 in the UK, initially operating as Cattle carrier between London and New York.
In 1907 transferred to Atlantic Transport Line and renamed Mobile, in 1911 it was sold to Norway, converted into a whaling factory ship named Thoger. Sold in 1913 and renamed Guvernoren.
This was destroyed by a Fire triggered by oil lamp spill on 27 January 1915 with 16.615 barrels onboard (around 400 whales). They were making oil by killing whales and boiling it in some form or so.
Once we were back from the outdoor zodiac excursion, we were back to the ship.
There was the first in lifetime opportunity to do a "Polar Plunge" (Jump into Antarctic Waters with all icebergs around and water temperatures around -6 Degree C
It was crazy cold and was inspired a lot, watching the senior and old folks over 70 trying to do that.
I assume it to be the truly once in lifetime opportunity to do that and will remember for the rest of lifetime for having to attempt such a task.
We did our polar plunge near the portal point where we managed to sight few more humpback whales.

Fournier Bay and awards ceremony

The next day morning, we woke up to what that can be said to be a truly Antarctic spectacle.
We were anchored at the Fournier Bay which was covered by more than 2000 ft high mountains all around with thick sheets of ice and we had a chance to sight multiple wildlife.
It was a sunny morning, which was getting rid of the fog as we ventured out on the Zodiac along with few other runners.
We had close encounters to the distance of 20 ft from lots of Fur Seals, migratory birds and close views of various acrobatic efforts of humpback whales.
All that could be said that it was the way for Antarctica with the best of weather and experience throughout more importantly the last day of excursion out.
Around noon we had the Award ceremonies to felicitate 7 Continent finishes, top 3 finishes for full and half marathon.
Was really surprised to hear that there are close to 11k runners who have completed the 7 continent races.
After all the splendid locations and photographs with the background, we set back to lower decks for lunch.
We had to take the scolpomine patch again on the return, which typically takes 4 hours to be effective, we were welcomed by rough weather with decent number of winds, starting to get motion sickness and after throwing up and managed to get some sleep to be woken up by the dinner announcement.

Trip back to Ushuaia

We started at around 2:30 PM from the Fournier Bay and started heading towards Ushuaia, which almost a 2-day long sailing with high winds, to the extent that we were walking on board worser than a potential drunken person.
We were provided with the ample lectures around the size, lifespan and length of whales, detailed lecture on Antarctic treaty and all the history around it.
With some music trivia done at the night and trying to bring in some folks out of their room to be more lively and enjoyable experience.

MORE PHOTOS HERE - https://1drv.ms/f/s!AqP61Zyje9Vkkusap09GaUMX3FYGhg?e=cGqtwz

SankarAthlete

Friday, March 22, 2024

Antartica Marathon 2024