Saturday, December 28, 2013

Songs for the Wandering Soul II

Remember that third type of song?  The ones with amazing lyrics and great music that together are a deadly combination that zings the life along your veins and plasters a smile across your face even when you're in the foulest of moods?  Well, here is a fantastic one to fire up your wanderlust and send you out the door seeking the next amazing adventure.

Monday, December 23, 2013

You Know You're In Antarctica When ....

.... you head back to your tent (that's right, tent) at 2am and have to put on your sunglasses to go outside.
.... you wake up and can tell the time not by the light, which never changes, but by the number of people crunching around outside your tent.
.... your morning routine involves brushing your teeth and emptying out your pee bottle.
.... the wind stops, the sun comes through the clouds, and everyone strips down to short sleeves even though it's still -10 C.

I'll leave it to the Aussies to continue this list, which is theirs to begin with!

In one run-on sentence, this is what I expected from my Antarctic experience: sweet ride to the continent on an IL-76, be pretty damn cold but run a marathon anyway, recover from said marathon, cheer for crazier people running an ultramarathon, climb aboard IL-76 and come home again with stories.


In one run-on sentence, this is what I got from my Antarctic experience: sweet ride to the continent on an IL-76, be pretty damn cold but run a marathon anyway, recover from said marathon, cheer for crazier people running an ultramarathon, find out a massive storm has arrived and we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so instead play Monopoly/Jenga/Scrabble/Spoons, do puzzles, eat heaps of delicious food, drink gallons of tea, build an igloo, play cricket/soccer/golf/volleyball/table tennis, go cross-country skiing and ride bikes, do a scavenger hunt, have a pub quiz night, do some yoga, go off-camp to Elephant Head Rock, sleep as little as possible in order to soak it all in, and eventually climb aboard the IL-76 and come home again with AMAZING stories.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Antarctic Ice Marathon in Review

Many many things in the world are built upon the written word.  Blogs, for one.  Race reviews, for another.  So it's rather embarrassing and frustrating as a writer to have to admit this, but here goes--

There. Are. No. Words.

I am asked, "How was the trip?" or "How was the race?" or "How was Antarctica?" and a huge smile immediately blazes across my face, but all I can inadequately mumble is "Amazing!"  Followed by an awkward silence because clearly a longer, fuller response was expected, yet I'm at a loss for how to distill those 11 days into a few meager sentences.

And before someone tries to be smart and argue that a picture is worth a thousand words, let me just squash that myth right now as well.  Pictures are just as inadequate when Antarctica is your subject matter.


My brain is still trying to process my Antarctic experience.  I think most of my fellow runners are in the same boat, and our friends and family can't figure out why we don't know how to tell our stories and share our photos and help them vicariously enjoy what we experienced.  I'll probably be writing about Antarctica for the next month!  And not a thing I say will ever fully do justice to the adventure!

But, I have to start somewhere.  So we'll begin by taking a look at the event that precipitated this entire adventure for me: the marathon itself!