Was it worth the Money?

"Was it worth the money?" is the number one question that I've been back since I've been; followed closely by "What was it like?"and "Did you have fun?". To the first one I can easily answer 'Yes'. To the second...I'm finding harder to explain. I've ended up telling anecdotes about our resourceful and capable Russian hosts at the north pole camp, talking about the weather, and about beautiful Svalbard. To the third, I cant really say 'Yes'; so I say "It was an experience". I've been waiting to write this last entry until I had digested the whole thing and could really wrap a rope around what I got out of it. I'm not sure I'll ever really have a handle on what I 'got out of it' or what the experience 'means' but what I can do is dump all the bits that I do know out on the table.

Was it worth the Money?

I figured that a marathon at the north pole would be a way to live a day in the life of a turn of the century polar explorer. 26.2 miles on foot on the pack ice would have been a good day for the likes of Amundsen or Nansen. I now have even more respect for those guys. Seven hours in the wind and blowing snow, tripping over snow drifts and crumpled sea ice was a more vivid look at history than just words in a book.

What was it like?

Like I said, the race was seven hours and twenty minutes of trudging around out in the snow and ice. Camp Barneo is the Hilton of floating sea ice camps. The tents were all warm and the food was good. The people were all really interesting, and everyone was there for a different reason. The Russians and the BBC were at work and all us runners were there on holiday. Actually being there sort of felt like no big deal because it was 'business as usual' for such a high percentage of people there. I have never met so many people in my life that had been to Antarctica or had run marathons across the Sahara or the Himalayas. I guess I mean running a marathon at the north pole doesn't seem like a big deal when the only people you have to talk to for three days are people running a marathon at the north pole.

Was it fun?

It was an experience. I read someplace that if you are standing at sea level that the horizon is only about three miles away. Oddly the best way I can describe my couple days on a frozen ocean is that they were horizon-expanding. I can't put my finger exactly on what I mean, but that seems to fit. It wasn't that being cold and running around on the ice was particularly moving. It was the race combined with just being there combined with the history I have read, the months and months of training, and the giant financial investment in something with no tangible return. I have always been skeptical of astronauts who've claimed that looking out a window and seeing earth from orbit changed their lives. The view is probably great, but not all that different from a commercial airliner. Now I see how the years of work and training give significance to the view out the window, just like the tribulations of hundreds of miles of pilgrimage give significance to standing in front of a relic or shrine. I guess you tend to savor every bite when it is an expensive meal. On paper this trip was a couple airplane rides to a remote but still completely accessible part of the world for nothing other than a vacation that wasn't nearly as fun and relaxing as sitting on a beach drinking something with its own umbrella. To me, having lived it, it was all those hundreds of miles I running alone in the desert in the sun, wind, rain, snow, pitch dark, and in the quiet glow of the moon that set this vacation apart from one that culminates in a photo staged to look like you are pushing over the leaning tower with your bare hand. I read Amundsen describe each one of his dogs and their personality and how having to eat them to survive was horrific for its similarity to cannibalism not for meat's inferiority to beef. These pages are what made standing in a blizzard in the midnight sun amongst a team of working dogs more significant than just petting another mut that eats its own shit.

After the race and back on dry land Juls and I talked about what we had done and tried to figure out if it was the hardest thing be had ever done. Maybe, maybe not. It definitely wasn't easy...but only a couple days after the race, we both had trouble remembering how hard it actually was. I think we concluded that it was up there at the top of the list of hardest things ever, but we were prepared. Or at least, we weren't surprised by anything. We had trained well (maybe over-trained), we had the right equipment, and we had read enough to know, generally what to expect. Considering that this was the first marathon and first time in the arctic for each of us, the lack of surprise is the bit I am the most proud of.

That said. Maybe the biggest thing that I can take away from the North Pole Marathon is a new scope for what is possible. Six months ago, a marathon at the north pole sounded impossible and ridiculous and the price tag seemed unfathomable. Six months ago, the farthest I had ever run was about twelve miles. In hindsight the whole thing doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Anyone who wanted to do it... could have.

This is the kicker.

There is nothing special about me, or any of the other people there, except that we decided to go. I have been thinking about all of the other things that I have always thought were impossible. Moreover, I have been realizing how small even my big goals are compared to what what might actually be possible. All sorts of cheesy and cliche words of wisdom have been flashing though my brain. Unfortunately it does me no good to repeat them, I can only say that they have new meaning when you feel that they are true. I guess another way to say it is that before this trip, I could never imagine what sort of people start revolutions or volunteer for the first wave; now I see that they are people just like you and me.