Barefoot Marathon in Antarctica, History in the Making

11-Stars

11-Stars

Barefooters
Jan 24, 2013
10
21
3
64
Raleigh, North Carolina
#1
I'm a newbie here and I ran my first barefoot marathon (26.2 miles) on December 30, 2012. I have since run two more full marathons totally barefoot, i.e. no duct tape or anything to protect my soles. My only training was that I have worn Vibrams on 67 previous full marathons.

Anyway, I will attempt to become the first person in history to complete a Full Marathon (26.2 Miles) totally barefoot in Antarctica. The marathon will be held February 25, 2013, on King George Island (http://marathon-adventures.com/WhiteContinent2013.html).

I received confirmation from several runners and race organizers of the Antarctica Marathons that nobody has ever completed a Full 26.2 Marathon totally barefoot in Antarctica. The first official marathon in Antarctica was on January 28, 1995, and since then there have been at least 1 or 2 full and half marathons per year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_Marathon). I sent a request to the Guinness World Record asking for confirmation but will not be hearing back from them for at least another 4 weeks.

By the way, I'm doing this for the Gawad Kalinga (http://gk-usa.org/), a charitable organization to build homes for poverty-stricken families in the Philippines.

Wish me luck!!! I'm gonna need it!
 
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#3
Welcome! You're going to run this marathon in a few days, but you won't hear back from Guinness for a month? Don't they have to be in the planning prior to the event and possibly have someone on staff attending, recording, taking pictures, video, etc.?

However, good luck. Please keep us informed of how you do.
 
#4
Thank you for the best wishes, Barefoot TJ and dutchie53!

As far as Guinness is concerned, having one of their staff physically present to observe the event is optional but all related expenses are my responsibility. This is a very expensive trip and I will NOT foot their bill just to prove that I actually did it. This is an organized marathon and recognized as an official race with a Race Director, crew, and 65 marathoners who can act as my witness.

If Guinness does not recognize this as a record then I could care less but I know for a fact if I succeed, I still will be the first person in history to run barefoot in Antarctica. That's all that really matters to me plus the fact that my charity will get lots of publicity especially in the Philippines where it's needed most.
 
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#5
Charity first! :barefoot: I just was making sure you knew there were certain "rules." Good luck!
 
#8
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get good weather on Monday. I've never been there but from what I know the course is entirely dirt gravel road with small portions of the course having jagged rocks. I think the course will be set up on the same roads that connects the various research bases and loop back about 12 times. I'm hoping that the road is compact with minimum amount of loose gravel and rocks but we'll see. My avatar shows my feet after the Sedona Marathon which consisted of about 13 miles of rocky dirt gravel road and 13 miles of asphalt. It was the dirt road portion that did my feet in. Thanks for the well wishes.
 
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#9
Welcome 11-Stars. Quite an introduction. I wish you well with your marathon and let us know how it goes.

I did the Sedona Marathon (shod) last year. Loved the course, but I was unprepared and ended up with knee pain. I hope to redeem myself in the future. Do you think you will do that one again?
 
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#10
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#18
Hi All,

The weather in Antarctica has been known to be very unpredictable and, unfortunately, we were met with bad weather on Monday so our chartered airplane was not allowed to land because of poor visibility due to heavy fog. On Tuesday, we were met with the same bad news, so we ended running the Punta Arenas Marathon which was originally scheduled for Thursday, instead. I wore my Vibrams for this marathon to preserve my feet and, besides, I did not want to risk any injury before the Antarctica Marathon.

Finally, we were greeted with GREAT NEWS at dinner tonight!!! We were finally told that we have a small window of opportunity to land in Antarctica at 5:00 a.m. and run the marathon for 6 hours and depart at 11:00 a.m. assuming that the weather forecast holds. If there's a chance that we will not be able to land because of weather changes for the worst then the whole deal is off and this Antarctica trip will be over before it even got started.

This is our last shot at making history. There are 4 individuals vying for a world record: 1) a 9 year-old kid, Nicholas Toocheck, vying to become the youngest to run a marathon in Antarctica, 2) Brent Weigner is attempting to break his own record of running a marathon in 7 Continents for the 8th time, 3) Ziyad Rahim is attempting to do the Grand Slam (a marathon in all 7 continents and North Pole) in the shortest time of 44 days, now 42 days, and 4) me as the first person to complete a marathon in Antarctica entirely barefoot.

We will need all the luck in the world to make this happen. Tomorrow is our last chance, otherwise, the deal is off we will have to wait another year or maybe someone else will beat us it.

Thanks,
11-Star Vega
 
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#19
I wish you safe flying! And good luck on the race. :snaphappy:
 
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