3:47 finish, 236/1048 place overall. Nice race starting in downtown Louisville, running through Churchill Downs, then over the bridge and along the Ohio River on the Indiana side before doubling back to finish near downtown. Not too hilly with ideal running weather; another sub-four state done.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Marathon #139 (country #25): Sao Paulo Marathon, Brazil
3:51 finish, 996/4673 place overall. Typical big city race going through many parts of São Paulo, starting and finishing at the popular Ibrapuera Park. Not as much entertainment and crowd support as you’d normally see at such a large race, but well organized with friendly volunteers. Weather was humid but luckily it stayed mostly cloudy and not too hot, allowing for an okay sub-four finish.
Garmin map and performance details
Photos - Iguazu Falls, Argentina
Friday, February 24, 2023
Marathon #138 (country #24): Tel Aviv Marathon, Israel
About 3:50 unofficial time for marathon distance; 5:02 official finish for 31.1 miles (explained below).
Scenic urban course though different parts of Tel Aviv with nice stretches along the coast and through downtown areas. The course is mostly flat with just a few rolling hills, and with good running weather my marathon distance time was solidly under four hours.
However, this is an unusual and confusing course near the end with the full marathon splitting off from the shorter distances (half and 10K) at around 23 miles and two separate finish lines about a mile apart. The vast majority run the shorter races, which start later so they are running together with the full near the end. There is a very poorly marked turn off for the full marathon around 23 miles. Not paying close enough attention, I missed that turn, following the much larger stream of shorter-distance runners that the full had been running alongside for the past few miles. Their finish line was just about a mile short of the marathon distance in the same start/finish area (very unusual; usually it’s the same finish line). Because it was only a mile short, I thought at first it was just a measuring error with the course (which has happened before) or something off with my watch. I soon realized that I crossed the wrong finish line and had to run back to the split. This backtrack was about two miles, against the huge flow of shorter distance runners, probably making me look like a complete idiot. From the split I then ran, very slowly, the final three miles of the correct course. This put me at 31.1 miles total, coincidentally about a 50K ultra distance, with a 5:02 finish. All of this was my fault of course for not paying attention, but I have never seen such a poorly signed split - just a volunteer sitting there with a small red sign and an arrow that didn’t even say “marathon” or “42K” on it. Anyway it accidentally became my second ever 50K run (unofficial of course), my only official one being Caumsett in 2018 with a similar time around five hours.
Sunday, January 15, 2023
Marathon #137 (second round state #27): Jekyll Island Marathon, GA
4:04 finish, 87/283 place overall. Nice fairly scenic race around Jekyll Island, a small resort island off the coast of southern Georgia. Took this one slow considering I wasn’t feeling great and didn’t need the state under four hours anyway, but with unusually cool weather and a mostly flat course, not a horrible time.
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Marathon #136 (country* #23 / finished 7 continents): Antarctic Ice Marathon, Union Glacier, Antarctica
5:22 finish, 22/57 place overall. One of only two marathons in Antarctica within the Antarctic Circle, this race runs four laps of about 6.5 miles starting and finishing at the Union Glacier camp, a few hundred miles from the South Pole. The entire course is on a snow covered glacier, making the terrain difficult to run on and producing much slower than normal finish times. It’s more comparable to running on sand or uneven trails than on roads. Luckily this year’s temperatures were relatively mild (teens Fahrenheit) with not much wind, so while much harder than a normal road marathon, it could have been even more challenging. Third slowest finish time ever (after Pikes Peak in 2011 and Zermatt, Switzerland in 2017) but not unexpected considering the difficulty of the course. Outstanding scenery of course, and overall great experience with a friendly group of crazy runners from all over the world. Nice to finally be done with the seven continents.
* Although Antarctica is not really a country, Marathon Globetrotters counts it as one because of its unique designation as a continent. Their list is the standard used by many international marathon runners.
Garmin map and performance details
More race info and photos...
For this race runners are required to arrive in Punta Arenas, Chile, three days before scheduled departure to Antarctica for a race briefing, cold weather clothing check, Covid testing, and luggage preparation. These are a few pictures from around Punta Arenas before and after the marathon…
From Punta Arenas, it's about a four-hour flight to Union Glacier, Antarctica on a B-757 jet chartered by the logistics company that operates the trip. This year the plane left Punta Arenas a day late due to unsafe flying weather at Union Glacier. Flight delays to and from Antarctica are very common because if it's too cloudy or foggy, pilots cannot safely land on the ice runway. This is from the plane going into Antarctica...
This is the plane after landing on the ice runway and the transport vehicles that shuttle visitors to the camp a few miles away…
Union Glacier camp houses visitors for all different activities (not just the marathon) during the summer period of November through January. Marathoners spend two nights there, one before and one after race day…
A closer view of the sleeping tents, which are naturally heated by the 24 hours of daylight in summer… Heavy sleeping bags are provided on cots with air mattresses…
Inside the main dining and cooking tent, which is where meals and snacks are served and where people spend much of their down time…
The marathon start/finish line before the race started… There was some light snow and fog at the start, but very little wind and “mild” temperatures in the teens…
The lack of extreme cold and wind made the race somewhat easier, but recent snowfall - including during the race - made the surface conditions tougher to run on than in previous years when the snow was more packed down. The snow ended mid-race and the clouds cleared for some better scenery in the later miles…
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