Antarctica Race Stage 4-Leave It All Out There!

Getting out of bed for the last stage was difficult to say the least. The hamstring and ankle pain only got worse following the 11.5 hour stage 3. With such short recovery time prior to stage 4 my body felt like a rusty lawn chair and certainly not ready for another six hours of running in extreme cold. That said, what I realized before even leaving my cabin was that this was the last stage of the Last Desert. There was literally no tomorrow. Forget the pain, forget the fatigue, it was time to leave it all out on the course. This was the day that the year has been all about.


Stage 4 was set in the most incredibe of scenes. Dorian Bay sits on the other side of a snow and glacier covered island from Port Lockroy. Our Zodiac had to navigate through a field of the most incredibly blue icebergs to reach shore. Our path to starting line was up a pile of rocks and onto a tricky glacier.
The course was a 2.3km loop and the course terrain was...knee deep snow. Talk about an anti-climatic start. From the gun everyone went out walking or trudging I should say. The only thing audible was the sound of crunching snow and heavy breathing. The course swung around to the right and began a small descent and then immediately went left and up. Climbing, climbing, climbing we finally reached the top of the ridgeline from which we could see down to Port Lockroy on our right and Dorian Bay down the ridge to our left. Jagged mountains, glaciers, penguins and icebergs owned the spectacular landscape from atop the snowy ridge.

Gunnar Nilsson, a Norweigian competitor who just recently trekked 600 miles across Greenland took the lead by quite some distance as he was the only runner to think about the merits of snowshoes. While we all labored intensively with every step, Gunnar seemed to glide along as though he were out for a Sunday stroll. Behind Gunnar was Paul Acheson, Ryan Sandes, Guy Evans, and Paolo Barghini. I was stuck somewhere in the middle of the pack. Originally I thought that I would hang back allowing everyone else to pack down the snow on the first or second loop but then I realized that with everyone in single file that it would become damn near impossible or at least one helluva chore to pass anyone later. I made move, expending a lot of energy and breathing hard I bounded through untrodden snow to the right of the race pack and overtook everyone with the exception of Gunnar who was still roughly .5km ahead of everyone. I followed Gunnar's tracks for a while until we started descending the ridge and cutting back on ourselves just below the ridge trail above. At that point Paul Acheson went for it bounding past me, going hell for leather to catch Gunnar before the course turned right again and descending steeply back to the starting line. Once Paul went so too did Ryan. Ryan's legs aren't as long as Paul's who happens to stand about 6'3" so Ryan was leaping wildly, swinging his legs in an almost circular motion to land in Paul's footsteps.

On the steep descent to the starting line Gunnar's snowshoes became more of a hindrance than a help as with each step the shoe would slide under the top layer of snow and ice. He gave up on the snowshoes at the bottom of the hill and switched back to his running shoes. Recklessly I did an almost controlled fall down the hill but despite my speed I was still overtaken by Paolo, Guy, and Emanuele Gallo of Italy.

To be honest this was perfect. I stuck myself on Paolo's hip and just put each foot where his foot had been. Being the hunter is so much more fun than being the hunted. Unfortunately Paolo didn't like this as much as I did and once we reached the steepest incline and stepped aside and let me pass. I shot up the hill thanks to the use of my trekking poles despite one of them being bent from me falling on it 200meters from the finish of stage 1. At the top of the ridge Ryan and Emanuele were gone from sight. I overtook Paul and Guy and thanks to a cleaner trail of packed snow was able to really get going. Within the next 4 hours I managed to actually lap Guy and Paul twice but I couldn't get sight of Ryan or Emanuele, meanwhile Paolo and I traded third place back and forth.

At around 7pm the temperature dropped pretty dramatically and the katabatic winds started shooting loose snow sideways into our faces. My hands started to go numb and I hadn't felt my thumbs for close to an hour. My feet however started to present a problem. My shoes were soaking wet with melted snow and with my core temperature dropping my feet started to freeze. Frostbite definitely entered my mind but I continued for another two laps before reminding myself that a 'stitch in time saves nine.' I slid into the checkpoint at the starting line several minutes ahead of Paolo and tried changing my socks. The problem I ran into was that as soon as I took off my gloves my fingers began to frieeze and I labored futily for almost 8 minutes. By then Paolo passed through the checkpoint and took a lead by quite some distance. Despite yielding third place and distance to Paolo the stop was the right call. I was now dressed with the appropriate gear to go strong for the remaining two hours. I convinced myself that this was the beginning of a whole separate race, one spanning only two hours so I treated it as though I were completely fresh and that I hadn't already been running for 4 hours through deep snow. It worked.

I managed to lap most of the race field two if not three times and with only 27 minutes to spare I caught and overtook Paolo. This was the stage I had been waiting for during the course of the entire year. I knew somewhere deep down that I could run with the best if only for a stage but it was a glimpse that leaves my satisfied and content to walk now from the 4Deserts Challenge. Paolo is a former Sahara Race champion and is always a top 5 finisher so to catch him and pass him for third place on this day was an honor for me. Incidentally, Ryan and Emanuele only beat us by about 20 minutes. If you would like to see the race you can catch it on Sky Sports on December 8th.

At this point we are two days into our three day boat journey back to Argentina and it cannot come soon enough. I'm ready to put this chapter behind me even though it has been a most rewarding, humbling, and exciting experience. The support I've had along the way has been mind-blowing and my list of thank you's would be a mile long. To all of you out there, especially Jem Jem, thank you.

See you all soon. Good running!

Rp