‘It looked like we had landed on the moon’

The original plan was to begin the Great World Race in Antarctica; it’s best to have fresh legs when running in extreme conditions. But it was too warm on the scheduled start day and the runway in Antarctica, which is just a stretch of ice, had softened into slush, making it unsafe for our plane to land.

Instead, we started in Cape Town, South Africa. We finished running 26.2 miles along a sunny promenade beach walk and boarded our flight to Antarctica that afternoon for a midnight race start; two marathons in the same 24-hour period. 

It was 20-below-zero and it looked like we had landed on the moon. There were no landscape markers to look at, no mountains, no animals. Just a frozen track we ran around, and around, trudging through ice. I wouldn’t even call it running, more like shuffling. My phone and Airpods died immediately because it was too cold. I couldn’t talk to anyone, between the layers of clothing and the cold, nothing about it allowed for conversation. All I could hear was my own breathing and footfalls. It was very quiet, and so lonely. 

I think before I started this journey, I thought it would be a test of my fitness level. But it was actually a test of my endurance of spirit. It tested everything I had and put me in painful situations. I had to dig deep into a place in myself I’d never been before. I’m grateful to have had that part of me be revealed. I feel like there’s so much more I’m capable of.

Words by Natalia Lazarus ’04, Author, Endurance Athlete, and Corporate Speaker