When I first began running, my friend, Angela Brunson,
shared with me a wise maxim for choosing races: “Never sign up for an event where
you’ll spend more time getting there, than on the course itself.” In other
words, a 10K that’s an hour’s drive from home is too far away. In two weeks, when I walk out my front door and head toward the starting line of the Antarctica
Marathon, I’ll be violating Angela’s advice by stupendous proportion.
The journey for me
and my intrepid support crew (my wife, Lindi Rosner, and our friend, Debra
Kaufman) will begin with a 20-minute car ride from home to LAX. We’ll board a 5-hour
flight to El Salvador, followed by a 4 hour flight to Lima, Peru, followed by
a 4 ½-hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. There, we’ll meet up with other
marathon adventurers and do a bit of sightseeing before taking yet another
flight, this one lasting 3 ½ hours, to Ushuaia, at the tip of South America.