Antarctic marathon

Today I skied the half-marathon, which was a pretty amazing adventure. The marathon starts at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, goes out to Pegasus, the runway, and back. For the half-marathon, we all loaded into Ivan the Terra Bus and they drove us out to Pegasus and we ran/skied back. Except we stopped at this "bathroom" (the cardboard) on the way and then the door wouldn't close and the terra bus can't move if the door doesn't close so we were stuck at mile 8. They sent a delta out to pick us up and take us the rest of the way. The bathrooms, by the way, were not exactly female-friendly... I might have been able to handle a 5-gallon drum with a funnel had they supplied a ladder of some sort, but this was definitely not do-able as it was.

It was a great ski, although it took me a little while to get used to skiing again (hadn't been in 2 years!) and I will definitely be sore tomorrow. I managed to come in a very decided last place, but most of the people were running or skate skiing and I'm guessing they didn't spend as much time as I did watching the emperor penguins that we passed. These are the same ones we saw on the way to McMurdo the day we arrived and they're still there. Apparently they're young males who are molting and they just hang out in one spot for a long time. It was also fun to watch the marathoners go by... two of the people in our group did the whole marathon. I have to stop by the store this evening to pick up my T-shirt.