Antarctic Marathon   28 March 2025, by Jon Cross

I’d had a project in the back of my mind for some years to run a marathon on every continent – and after completing the Rio marathon in 2019, that just left the hardest one to get to – Antarctica.   This is an annual event, and entries are limited to around 100 competitors (due to the size of the ships that can access the area).   I was all booked and ready to go in 2020 when Covid disrupted everything, and eventually after numerous postponements and cancellations I finally got a place this year and managed to complete that long held ambition.

The whole event is organised by an American company as a 12 day package – the schedule was to all meet in Buenos Aires for a couple of days then fly down to Ushuaia and board the ship for the 2 day crossing, past Cape Horn and then across the famously stormy Drake Passage to Antarctica.    Then one day to run the marathon and a few days of Antarctic cruising, before the crossing back and flights home.

I had an enjoyable first couple of days getting to know my fellow competitors, most of whom were looking to complete the seven continents challenge, and looking round Buenos Aires and a day trip on the ferry across the River Plate to Uruguay.   Then we all boarded our chartered flight down to Ushuaia at the tip of South America, where we then boarded our surprisingly luxurious ship, the Ocean Albatros, for our crossing.   

However nature had other ideas, and hurricane force winds were blowing through the Drake passage.  So we just sailed for a few hours along the Beagle Channel and dropped anchor in a sheltered bay for 3 whole days waiting for the storms to pass.  During this time we were all getting concerned that we would never make it.    We were rewarded, however, with the sight of dolphins, whales and albatrosses around our anchored vessel.

Finally the captain decided that it was safe to depart, and on the evening of Tue 25 March we raised the anchor and set off for a very bumpy crossing.   By Thursday lunchtime we started seeing icebergs, indicating we were finally drawing near to our destination. 

By late afternoon we finally reached our goal and anchored off-shore while the crew went ashore to set up the marathon course ready for tomorrow.    

Unsurprisingly, being Antarctica, the view from the boat was dramatic and rather bleak.  Most of the landscape was heavily glaciated, with the exception of the terrain where we were due to run.  This is the location of several of the various national Antarctic base stations.  The Chilean, Argentinian, Russian and Chinese research stations are all located close together – and the marathon course was being set up using the rough gravel tracks that interconnect them.  

Friday 28 March, we were all up bright and early and looking forward to finally achieving our long held ambition. We were then all shuttled ashore on a dozen or so zodiacs – and were welcomed by a group of friendly penguins who seem fascinated by us all arriving in their domain.

We all then changed out of the waterproofs we needed to wear to come ashore, and huddled around to keep warm whilst waiting to start.  The weather was typical for that time of year – the temperature was around zero, there was a very strong gusty wind blowing down off the nearby glaciers at 30+ mph, so we were all wearing multiple layers.

The actual surrounds of the marathon course were not at all scenic – the base stations all consist of portacabin type accommodation, fuel storage tanks and assorted industrial looking equipment, and along with the fact that there is no vegetation in Antarctica and there was currently only patchy snow around made it all quite bleak.    

Finally the gun went and we all set off.   The route started from between the Russian and Argentinian bases, up a steep hill to the Chilean base then back down to the coast and along to the Chinese base then back again, this out and back course was then repeated six times.  The course was hard going, mostly loose gravel and mud with icy puddles, and the need to dodge occasional penguins who didn’t seem to be respecting the course markers!

I think everyone found it very challenging, but that was only to be expected, and after 4 hours and 26 minutes I finally finished and was very pleased to find I had finished 3rd overall.   I was also elated to have finally complete the 7 continents project about 10 years after first deciding to go for it.

About 25 different nationalities took part in the race, most notably a very nice man, Afowari, from Cameroon who ran the race wearing full Cameroonian national costume !

We all were shuttled back to our boat as soon as we finished to avoid hypothermia, and then we had an evening featuring many celebratory drinks.    Meanwhile the captain set sail south overnight for us so we could get at least a short glimpse of Antarctica.

 

The next day we stopped at a couple of other places as went ashore, and got treated to some fabulous sights – lots of spectacular icy scenery and wildlife – antarctic seals, elephant seals, penguins and nesting albatrosses:

We then set off back north for another rather bumpy 2 day crossing back to South America, and once we reached the shelter of the Beagle channel in Tierra del Fuego we finished off the whole adventure with the award ceremonies and further celebratory drinks up on deck.