Running in Antarctica, and not a soul to be seen in any direction
An edited excerpt from Hong Kong ultrarunner David Gething’s book, Relentless, about running seven marathons on seven continents in seven days
Antarctic mornings are an experience. As soon as you poke your head out from under the thick, double-walled sleeping bag you need to put on your sunglasses. The constant daylight is so bright it penetrates even through the fabric of the tent.
The next step is to take your clothes, which you had carefully left next to the bed the night before, and place them in your sleeping bag for five minutes to warm them up enough to put on. Woollen base layer, long top and trousers, intermediate fleece layer and outer windbreaker. The sunscreen needs to go in the sleeping bag as well, to melt it from something as hard as candle wax to a pasty liquid soft enough to be applied. To venture outside without sunscreen would result in rapid snow- and sun-burn.
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Then it’s off to the bathroom. Nothing stays on the continent, which must be kept pristine, so there are separate toilets for liquid and solid – an experience in coordination and planning if nothing else. Brushing teeth is similar to applying sunscreen. My toothpaste was as hard as a rock and needed to be chipped off then thawed out before being useable. And then coffee. The environment was so cold it was difficult to taste anything, but the coffee was liquid and warm, and that was enough.
It was 6am, and though at this time of year it was always daylight, the rest of the camp were sleeping, apart from the skeleton night crew. Nothing else for it but to go for an early morning run. As required, I registered myself out of camp with the staff, and went off to test the roughly 10km course, marked only with small blue flags set roughly 50 metres apart. Once again they clearly stressed the need to stay on the marked course. Some new crevasses had formed near the camp recently, and these were often hidden, covered by a thin layer of snowdrift.
After running a kilometre or so it started snowing, and the camp was left in a white out. Running was from marker to marker, and it was otherworldly.
Another few kilometres and the snowstorm cleared, opening up a sweeping panorama of the mountains, the vast icy plains between us, and not a soul to be seen in any direction. If it was a training run it was a failure – I couldn’t help myself but stop every few minutes just to look around and soak it up. And when that wasn’t enough I sat down and stared. And then I laid on my back in the snow and looked up.
