7 Continents: The Highs and Lows

Best Start: Rome

As I waited to start, I was standing right next to the Colosseum and "That's Amore" was blasting over the loud speakers. After spending my junior year of college in Italy, it will always have a special place in my heart. I was just so happy to be back there and sitting in such an amazing historic place waiting to start a race. Although all the men just peeing on the sidewalk instead of waiting for a porta-potty did kill some of the romance.

Worst Start: Antarctica
In the early years of the Antarctica Marathon, runners were allowed inside the Russian base before the race. They brought gifts of fresh produce to the scientists stationed there, and the mostly male scientists were thrilled to have some women to talk to. One downside to the Antarctic Treaty is that it disallowed this practice. Tourists are no longer allowed in the science bases. So we were standing around on the exposed beach, trying to stay warm and dry. The worst part was the "bathroom." The bathroom consisted of a bucket with a seat, placed inside a small tent. The wind was so strong that it kept blowing the tent away, leaving the poor person sitting on the toilet exposed!

This boat was our only shelter

Best Finish: New Zealand

After several big city races, it was really nice to do a small race. Rory was able to see me finish and get to me immediately after I crossed the line. Within minutes I was chilling in an ice pool and eating watermelon.

Worst Finish: Tokyo

I woke up sick on race morning and felt awful from my very first step. Plus by the time I crossed the finish line I'd run almost 28 miles (my coral was a good mile back from the start and I couldn't run the tangents). I felt awful and exhausted and just wanted to be done and collapse in my husband's arms. Instead they made us wind through endless exhibition halls. I kept up this awful shuffle until I passed out. Then they couldn't find an English speaking doctor, but also wouldn't release me until I was seen by a doctor. Once I was finally in a wheelchair, I had to wait for half an hour to get down in the elevator. I finally made it to Rory 2 minutes before he was going to go back to the hotel without me!

I finally made it back to the hotel, where I collapsed in bed

Best Aid Stations: Rome

There were buckets of ice cold sponges at the aid stations. It was a hot day and I was very sweaty and salty and those cold sponges felt like heaven. However, Rome had the grossest porta-potties by far!

Worst Aid Stations: Tokyo

The food along the course was more strange than terrible. Food options included whole tomatoes and bread filled with bean paste. I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to eat a whole tomato while running. The bread option actually sounded good until I took a big bite and found it was filled with bean paste. 

Best Travel Experience: Tokyo

I cashed in all my frequent flier miles and we flew home business class! The multi-course meals, unlimited sake, and lie flat seats made the long flight a pleasure instead of just something to be endured.

Worst Travel Experience: Antarctica

This clothing would not have worked in Antarctica

Our group met in Buenos Aires and then we flew on the Argentinian airline, Aerolineas, down to Ushuaia. Our flight left an hour late and then we made two unscheduled stops along the way! So by the time we finally got to Usuaia, we'd missed all our time to explore the town! That turned out to be the least of our problems. We soon discovered that the unscheduled stops had been to drop off mail. To make some extra money, the airline filled the cargo hold with mail and delivered it for the postal service. In order to make room for the mail, they left all our baggage behind!We were headed to Antarctica and we had no luggage- no coats, no hats, no running stuff! The Marathon Tours staff spring into action, our boat departure was delayed, and we waited anxiously. Thankfully we all got our bags before the boat had to leave!

Best Post Race Meal: Almost all of Them!

I did a lot of good eating around the world! After the Antarctica Marathon, the chef on the boat made a dessert buffet, including a cake shaped like a penguin. I ate so much chocolate! In Chile, we had the traditional Chilean cocktail, pisco sour, and I tried squid ink pasta. In Rome, I gorged myself on a bowl on truffle pasta and a huge gelato. In Tokyo, after many hours of rest, I mustered the energy to go eat a hot bowl of Udon noodles. It was just what my sick tired body wanted! And in Morocco, I had a fresh strawberry juice, a cappuccino, an omelette and some bread. It would almost be worth running another marathon in all these places, just to eat these meals again. 

Worst Post Race Meal: Virginia Beach

After the race, we set off to Norfolk, where I remembered a nice waterfront area with a bunch of restaurants from when I'd been there on a class trip in high school. Unfortunately when we got there, the whole area was completely vacant and boarded up. We drove around and around and it seemed like the whole city was closed! We finally ended up at an IHOP.

What are your best and worst race experiences?

Chile Day 5: Celebrating a Birthday in Santiago

Wednesday was our last day in Chile and it was also R's birthday! I woke him up at 2 am (the time he was born), to sing Happy Birthday. He told me to shut up and go back to sleep. Rude. 

When we woke up later that morning, I did a quick workout in the gym and then we had a leisurely breakfast. I already miss the fresh strawberry juice, buffet of fresh fruit, perfectly cooked eggs, and giant bowl of warm manjar (caramel) to drizzle on my toast! I went a little crazy with the manjar because it was the last day.

We took some time to pack up and check out, leaving our suitcases with the hotel for the day. Our first stop was the local craft market just a couple blocks down from our hotel for some souvenirs. We took our time wandering the market. There were a lot of alpaca products, from socks, to sweaters, to hats. There were also a lot of metal crafts, from earrings, to decorative plates, to wall plaques. I dragged poor R to look at a million pairs of earrings that basically all looked the same and agonized over which to buy. I finally just bought myself both pairs that I really liked, one is a pair of pounded silver and the other is turquoise tear drops. The prices were good, the merchants friendly but not overly pushy, and we felt safe.

Next stop was the Mercado Central, the giant fish market. We saw row after row of every kind of fresh seafood imaginable. The merchants here however were very aggressive and the  smell of fresh seafood got a little overwhelming.

So we headed to San Cristobel, the biggest hill in the city that has a funicular that takes you to the top. The funicular was a bit ghetto, so I had visions of us crashing down to our death.

The smog was pretty thick, but it was still a nice view. We had a good time seeing what landmarks we could now recognize.

Then we hiked up the final portion to the giant statue of Mary at the top. My calves are still feeling that glacier hike, and I was glad we hadn't hiked the whole hill.

After an equally scary funicular ride down the hill it was lunch time. We were near the Bellavista neighboorhood, so we decided to make one last stop at Viva la Vida. On one hand it seemed silly to go to the same place 3 times, but on the other hand no other place looked as a good and had such a nice atmosphere.

We had a leisurely lunch in the sun, sharing one last terremoto (but a small one today!) I had a hake sandwich  the fish was very lightly fried and so moist and tender. It came on a fresh baguette with a salsa of tomatoes and onion. There was so much fish that I had to give up on the baguette in order to finish. R had salmon and cheese on homemade focaccia with pesto. He said it was also amazing. 

We wandered back to the hotel and spent our last hour just sitting in the park, enjoying the sun and sharing a Mendocino, which is 2 shortbread cookies filled with caramel and covered in chocolate. Heaven in a cookie.  

Birthday boy in his new hat

And then it was time to head to the airport :( The trip home was long, but uneventful, and we were not pleased to see snow at home upon our arrival. Please bring me back to the warm sunny days in Chile. 

Chile Day 4: Valparaiso

Tuesday morning we were pretty tired from the marathon day of hiking, but we roused ourselves to go to Valparaiso. Valparaiso is a city on the ocean that is a Unesco world heritage site and we heard great things about it.

We navigated the metro much more smoothly than on Saturday and bought our bus tickets also without issue. We used Turbus, and I would highly recommend it. The tickets were only $6, the bus was very clean, we had assigned seats, and they even played a movie. 

Our good luck ended when we got to Valparaiso. It was cloudy and cold and we were dressed for a warm summer day. Our first mission was to find sweatshirts. Secondly, the area around the bus station was pretty sketchy. We followed the directions the guy at the tourism booth in the station gave us to "the tourist district," but it never got any nicer.

The streets were narrow, crowded, loud, and dirty. We didn't feel safe and we never found anything good to do. We couldn't get near the ocean, and we couldn't see the supposedly picturesque colorful houses up in the hills because of the fog.

The one picture I took in Valpo of the only pretty building

We wandered around for a couple hours and then decided to cut our loses and head back to Santiago. We stopped to grab a couple of epanadas for lunch, and I ordered the "Napolitano," which was supposed to be like a pizza. Instead it was filled with hot dogs. Fail. Maybe we weren't prepared enough and maybe Valparaiso is better with a tour guide and a car, but I won't be going back any time soon.

Back in Santiago we took a bit to recompose ourselves and then headed to the Bellavista district for dinner. We knew we wanted another delicious teremoto cocktail and after my hot dog empanada fail I also wanted an English menu. We wandered the district for awhile checking out menus, but we were like Goldilocks and impossible to please. One place was too fancy, another didn't  have an English menu, and another didn't have teremotos. We finally decided to go back to Viva la Vida, where we had lunch 2 days before. Great choice. We had the back patio all to ourselves. We ordered the pitcher of teremoto this time, and it was giant. Just what we needed to erase the crappy memory of Valparaiso. 

giant pitcher of teremoto, you were so good.

We shared a salad of spinach, romaine, peppers, goat cheese, and a fresh basil dressing. It was great- crisp and fresh. The goat cheese had the texture of a cheddar instead of being soft and crumbly like in the US, but was really good. 

I figured since I was in Chile, I should have Chilean sea bass at least once. Holy goodness. It was a huge, tender, flaky piece of fish on top of onions, peppers, potatoes, and carrots, and topped with a spinach cream sauce. I can't even describe how good it was and I ate until I was about to explode. 

Chilean Sea Bass Perfection

We took a leisurely walk home through the park wonderfully full of delicious food and drink. Valpo was a bust, but dinner redeemed the day.

Chile Day 3: Glacier Hike and Hot Springs

Spoiler alert....... I got my full South American marathon after all!!!!!

We had booked a hot spring and glacier tour through Eco Chile for Monday. We tried to do most of this trip on our own on the cheap, but we also wanted to get put of the city and see the mountains, so we decided to splurge on one guided tour for a glacier and hot springs adventure.

Our guide, Mario, pick us up bright and early at our hotel and we headed south out of Santiago. The highway soon turned to a narrow twisting back road with a sharp drop off down to the river. The towering mountains we saw from the city we now right around us. We stopped in San Jose de Maipo, a little village, to buy lunch. We got empanadas at the bakery, water and cookies at the market, and apples and avocados at the fruit sand, before heading off again. Soon the road turned into a dirt track and we completely left all signs of civilization. We were in an SUV, but we were bouncing all over the road. There were a lot of trucks coming from the mines up in the hills, that kicked up so much dust that we couldn't see anything. This made it especially scary when we pulled out to pass them. I was pretty sure we would die either by hitting a bump and then sliding off the cliff or by hitting a truck head on. But eventually we reached the trail head in El Morado.

note the lack of roads to San Jose de Maipo and El Morado

We grabbed our packs and headed off. It was about a 5 minute walk to the ranger station where we needed to check in. I was dying. The race yesterday made me feel pretty darn good about my fitness, but the start of the hike totally made me doubt it. I was gasping and my heart was racing. I had totally under estimated the effect of the altitude. Mario went to sign us in while R and I exchanged " we are screwed" looks.

And then we were off. We could see the glacier 16 long, steep kilometers in front of us. The first section was very steep and all I could do was watch my feet and try to keep moving. I just tried to remind myself to look up occasionally and remember how completely amazing the view was. I have seen a lot of mountains in my life but these were by far the most rugged and spectacular.

After an hour we stopped for a quick break by a spring. I ate my apple, which was both huge and amazing. There is nothing like fresh local fruit. As we ate, we were approached by a group of horses. The farmers turn them out to graze all summer and fall. I fed one my apple core and made friends. 

But we still had a long way to go. Luckily next section wasn't quite as steep and the footing was a little easier. An hour later we stopped for lunch by a little lake. I housed my cheese empanadas and then cut open the avocado. Holy yum. It was so flavorful and perfectly ripe. I also drained half a liter of water. It was sunny and the air was very, very dry. I worked up quite a sweat, but it dried almost instantaneously and I constantly felt thirsty.

After lunch we had only about 30 minutes until we reached the glacier, but it was steep and rocky. It was rough, but I was determined to touch that stupid glacier. And then finally we were there. It was crazy to be touching ice that is thousands of years old. We didn't linger long at the glacier because of the risk of rockslides and avalanches.

Going down was amazing. It was a little rough on the joints, but at least I could breathe! Since I could breathe, I could also talk so I had a long conversation with Mario about Chilean history, politics and culture. And I had a lot more energy to admire the stunning scenery (and do a few cartwheels).

5 hours and 32 kilometers later we were sunburned, dirty, and back at the car. Hot springs time!! We headed even further south and east on the crazy, bump dirt path to the springs. The Baños Colina hot springs are nestled at the bottom of the San José volcano. When we got there we had a celebratory tailgate with Pisco sours, avocados, hard boiled eggs, and nuts.

The hot pools were fed by a single hot spring that fed into a pool at the top of the hill. This flowed into a pool below, which in turn fed into another pool, and so on. So the pools got cooler as you went down the hill. We started in the fourth pool and worked our way up. Omg, nothing has ever felt as good as a hot mineral bath after a half marathon and a day of hiking. It really felt like something out of a movie to be in this hot spring fed pool looking a condors sweeping over the snowy peaks of the Andes. I could have stayed there forever. 

Sadly, we eventually had to head back on the bouncy road back to Santiago. I had been worried the drive back on that road in the dark, but I was so blissed out on hot springs and Pisco sours and so tired, that nothing bothered me. I ended up passing out on R's lap for most of the ride. As I was lying there I started thinking- I had done 5k on the treadmill in the gym early in the morning, then hiked 32k. That mean that I was a tiny 5k away from doing a marathon. Yes I was tired, but this was an amazing opportunity. When I would be in South America again and just need 5k to complete a marathon distance in one day? So yes, I hopped on the treadmill again when we got back to the hotel and pounded out those 3 miles. 

Meeting my marathon goal after all, touching a glacier, being surrounded by the beautiful mountains all day, and finishing with hot springs and cocktails. Does life get any better??

Chile Day 2: Race Day!

I woke early on race morning with my stomach churning. I thought that since I had dropped down to the half, that I wouldn't be. Wrong-o. I think it was a combination of not being able to officially switch to the half, not having as much time to acclimate as planed, and being in a foreign country. I had everything laid out and ready to go. Until the 26.2 with Donna, I had no technical difficulties. My garmin and i-pod were full charged. I heard that pretty much everyone in the race wears the official race shirt, but I didn't want to try anything new. 

I had brought peanut butter from home for my traditional pre-race breakfast, but then couldn't find it. So I had a bowl of oatmeal instead and tried not to be too jealous of R's bacon, eggs, and pastries. After a quick pit stop back in the room, we were off. 

I picked our hotel somewhat randomly, but the location was awesome. It was about 4 blocks from the entry chute. I got a little confused at the chutes and ended up in the 10k chute, but managed to extricate myself. The guard then  tried to send me over to the marathon chute, but I played the clueless American and went right by him into the half area. I had expected the worst when it came to porta-potties after Rome last year. But the lines were short and they were clean. I came prepared with my own TP so all was good.

I still had half an hour before the start so I sat down on a curb to chill out. I was still super nervous and could tell my heart rate was high. It was really strange because I couldn't understand anything going on around me. The announcer was blaring and occasionally everyone broke into this cheer, "T, A, TTT, AAA, viva TA." No idea what it means but soon I was shouting along.The chute was absolutely packed and not organized by pace so the first mile was a mess. But then the road opened up into 4 lanes and we spread out.


The race is kind of a blur. I had no idea where I was going and it was so crowded that I had to watch my feet a lot to keep from stumbling. The half course ended up being totally flat, mostly on big wide boulevards. The crowd support was fairly consistent. There was water/gatorade every 5k, but I never saw any food. The race started at 9 so the sun was already fully up and it got hotter as the race went on. Luckily there were firefighters blasting us with water fairly often. At one point they aimed it directly at me and it was so powerful that I got knocked sideways!

I had been worried about the heat since not a single one of my training runs was warmed than 45, but it didn't affect me. In fact, I felt great. I ended up doing a 4 min run/ 30 sec walk ratio until mile 11 when I just ran until the end. I told myself I didn't have to push, that I was just here to finish, but it just came naturally. So when I crossed the line in 2:02 I was thrilled. So strange that in my last race where I felt like I working so, so hard, I finished almost 2 minutes slower.

After the finish there was a giant crush to get into the finish area. I was tired, hot, thirsty, and not thrilled to be shoved and smushed. I grabbed a medal, pushed my way to grab fruit from the fruit table, and water from the water table and got out. I did like that they had separate finish areas for the full, half, and 10k, so that the short distance people didn't take all the food and water.

Overall, I was really impressed with the race organization. There were 25,000 people between the 3 races, but they separated the races nicely and had plenty of resources for each. Also, the humidity and smog wasn't nearly as bad I had heard.

R and I had arranged a meeting place down the road so I made my way there. We headed back to the hotel and headed to the pool. I totally wore my medal into the pool. Is there anything better after a race than swimming and then lying in the sun with a cold Gatorade??

After a hour or so, we got dressed and headed out for a late lunch. We headed to Barrio Lastaria, a cool artsy neighborhood we walked through yesterday with lots of sidewalk restaurants. We chose, Squadritto, a cute Chilean/Italian place and promptly ordered 2 Pisco Sours, another special Chilean drink. They were STRONG, but cold and yummy. We shared an amazing giant salad to start with lettuce, spinach, kale, cucumber and avocado. Everything was so crisp and it was dressed perfectly with oil and vinegar. I got squid ink pasta filled with shrimp and topped with crab sauce. R got fillet over fried potatoes. The food was amazing and it was so nice to sit out in the sun and have a long leisurely meal.

After the pool and lunch, I was feeling recovered enough to climb to the top of Santa Lucia hill. We only went half way yesterday and wanted to see the view from the top. It was spectacular. There was less smog than yesterday, so we had a better view of the mountains. The whole city is surrounded by these absolutely massive peaks. It is strange to be standing where it is 85 and sunny and looking at snow capped mountains.

We weren't starving after our late lunch, so we stopped at a bar right by the hotel for another round of Pisco Sours and some cheese empanadas for a snack before an early bed time.

In Chile they never get chilly....

In elementary school we used to sing this silly little song in music class and for some reason I still remember the line, "In Chile they never get chilly." It looks like that's going to be true. Here's the forecast for our time there. 

Since it's been about 30 and windy at home for the last week, I am more than ready for some time by the pool in the warm sunshine. I am not however to run when it is 82 degrees out. Naturally race day is going to be the warmest day. I have not done a single run in months and months where it was above 45.

This makes me feel especially glad that I am only doing the half. I think the heat would really destroy me if I were doing the full. But at the same time I am starting to second guess my decision to only do the half. I mean I ran the full in freaking Antarctica, couldn't I do the same in Chile? I am blowing all my frequent flier miles, taking time off work, and spending 30 hours travelling there and back- shouldn't I do the full? Do I really want to give up on my goal of doing a full on every continent?

But at the same time I didn't regret a single weekend that I spent skiing instead of doing a long run. We had a long, cold, snowy winter and I am so glad I didn't have to slog my way through 20 milers in the snow. I don't miss my body hurting for 3 months solid. I don't regret that I got to spend Sundays with my boyfriend instead of long running.

It wasn't an easy decision and I'm not sure I will every be at peace with it. BUT, the decision was made and we are leaving today and it's too late to change my mind. I am taking a total break from technology, so I won't be blogging while I am gone. So see ya next week!