The day after the Marathon

The day after

We awoke the following morning to the wake up call telling us there were humpback whales off the side of the ship. We looked out to the beautiful sight of at least four whales spouting and doing their normal dives and flips off our starboard side of the ship. How amazing was that!!!

We all hobbled down to breakfast and everyone looked a bit like the walking wounded. But still, there was a great deal of loud chatter at the breakfast table telling us we were still ok and ready to fight another day!

After lunch we took an excursion in the Zodiacs around Deception Island where we got great views of close-up whales, seals and swimming penguins between the icebergs of various shapes and sizes.

The afternoon saw the final posting of race scores and times. A total of 176 people finished the full marathon. The best and winning time was around 3:49 and the longest time was a bit over 8:02 – a long time to be out on that course.

I finished where I thought I would, right around 6:07 and in 96^th place with 80 people behind me, of those that finished, not counting those that were pulled off for being too slow at the halfway mark. For the elite runner, their times were roughly one hour slower, so that someone finishing around 4 hours would normally do around 3 hours. For those of us slower, it worked out to around 1 and ½ hours slower. So my time was equivalent to around 4:30 which is a personal best.

I did have a unpleasant encounter with the cabinet door in our cabin. While getting re-dressed for dinner, I had left one of the doors open while pulling out clothes. I stood up from kneeling down on the floor and BAM! Right into the corner of the door right about my right eye. It knocked my almost out and I just lay on the ground writhing in pain knowing I had done some good damage now. When I looked in the mirror, it was pretty bad, a major sideways gash across the forehead to around one inch of the eye and a welt/bump that was not going to get any smaller, but would continue to grow. I sheepishly put on a bandaid that was most visible which then invited many questions over the evening.

People suggested I say that I fell down the glacier or had a Scuar bird peck me, but I am not that I’m that good a liar   I later had Doctor Clair check it out and she said it would not require any stitches and I would be fine.

Oh, and my middle three fingers of my left hand still have major tinges and loss of feeling in the fingertips. During the marathon, my left hand especially seemed to freeze up into a claw despite wearing gloves and trying to move it around. Again, the Doctor said it could take weeks or months to fully regain feeling, I am a bit worried about my golf swing and chipping and putting!