Wednesday, January 23, 2008

And the winner is...........

This past weekend was the McMurdo Marathon, 26.2 miles by either ski or on foot. Coming down here it had been a goal to give it a shot so for the past few months I had been running to kind of get myself in shape. I had a good idea of when the marathon was going to be so about a month ago I did my long training run which turned out to be 16 miles. Right after new years I left town and went out to a field camp where I didn't do any running for two weeks and I just returned three days before the big race. The photo below is of the start, there are maybe 20 of us doing the whole marathon on foot.
The day turned out to be perfect, 39F with no wind and pretty good running conditions on the snow road. It was a little sunny but I can't really complain. Here is a photo of me with my friend Richard and my roommate Danny who both kind of trained for it. The route was 13 miles out and 13 miles back all on snow most of which was packed down pretty hard from vehicles. There were things to see but no change in elevation which probably saved me.

To make what could be a long story short, I ended up winning the race with a time of 3:26:18. This being my fourth marathon it felt better than the previous three. I stayed better hydrated and ate more than I ever have. There were only four aid stations on the race but I brought a couple of candy bars and ate those. There was a guy from South Pole, who won their big race and got a vacation to McMurdo to run the marathon, ahead of me until the 17 mile mark, or somewhere around there because there were no mile markers, but then he faded and I think I actually maintained a pretty even pace throughout the race. Maybe all those years of carrying a heavy backpack have toughen me up a little. Anyway, for winning I got a gift certificate for a massage in Christchurch when I get back there. Speaking of which I am done down here on 1 Feb so don't send anything as I won't get it in time. It is just around the corner. Yeaaah!!!
Me at the finish.

2 comments:

Isabel Aven and Sylvia Harper said...

holy shit galen! we are seriously impressed!! and you're headed home soon? any chance of stopping through lander??

Anonymous said...

What the hell are you doing down there?? SERIOUSLY. You on the run from Johnny Law or something? Nice to know you're doing well, I guess...

-Ant