It was on her third day of running consecutive ultramarathons in Antarctica that Donna Urquhart felt the full force of the continent’s brutal conditions: violent winds, bitter cold and such poor visibility that she couldn’t even see her feet.
Frequently stumbling as she struggled to put one foot in front of the other, Urquhart became anxious, especially when she noticed that she had veered away from the flags marking her route.
“It was like running in a cloud,” she tells CNN Sport. “That was really hard. It was sometimes snowing, and I was really surprised how disoriented we became.
“I’d never been to a polar region before. I hadn’t been to Antarctica, hadn’t experienced those conditions. I was quite fearful of going out and worried about my safety in terms of hypothermia and frostbite.”
This was Urquhart’s first week of running 871 miles (1,402 kilometres) over the course of 28 days in Antarctica, setting the record for the longest-ever run in a polar region.
Pat Farmer, a former Australian politician turned ultrarunner, set the previous record in 2012, though the 49-year-old Urquhart’s attempt is still pending ratification.
Starting on December 15, she fought through temperatures as low as -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) and winds as strong as 50 miles per hour (about 80.5 km/h) – moments in which Antarctica lived up to its reputation as the coldest, windiest, driest place on earth.
“It was a whole mix of emotions,” Urquhart says about breaking the record, a challenge she dubbed Run Antarctica.
“Obviously being really happy and relieved, being a little bit emotional and teary, but I think probably the main feeling I had was just feeling really proud of what I and our team had achieved.
“It was a long journey. We didn’t even know whether we could get to Antarctica in the first place. The funding and the logistics are massive.”
Australian Urquhart, who lives in Melbourne, is an experienced ultramarathon runner – a broad term describing any athlete who runs further than the 26.2 miles of a standard marathon – and also works as a researcher and scientist.
She has investigated the relationship between pain and endurance sports – some even describing her as a “pain scientist” – and has first-hand experience of the kind of energy-sapping discomfort to which ultramarathon runners are accustomed.
But running on Antarctica’s Union Glacier exposed Urquhart to a wholly different challenge, particularly for someone used to Australia’s warm weather and sandy beaches.
“No female had attempted this before,” she says, “so that was certainly intriguing for me to be exploring untouched opportunities.”
Fascinated by Antarctica’s unspoiled landscape – “the beauty, the vastness, the fact that it’s really untouched” – Urquhart spent 10 months preparing for the challenge, turning to some unusual training methods.
A container company allowed her to put a treadmill in a refrigerated storage unit and run for three or four hours in sub-zero temperatures each weekend, while she also partnered with an automotive parts company to train inside an industrial wind tunnel.
“We learned that anything over 80 kilometres per hour [roughly 50 mph] is just incredibly dangerous and cold,” says Urquhart.
“It was a really useful exercise. We also learned how cold is cold, but when you have cold and wind together, that is just another X factor again. The wind just brings the temperature down so significantly.”
Donna Urquhart launched the Run Antarctica challenge to empower more girls to take up sport. (Rhys Newsome via CNN Newsource)
On less extreme training days, she would run along the beaches in Melbourne, anticipating that the uneven surface would simulate the varied terrain in Antarctica.
That proved useful preparation: Urquhart often found herself stumbling and falling in the snow, while the soles of her feet also became sore from the load of running more than 30 miles (around 48 kilometres) each day. Two weeks on, she still had lots of soft tissue swelling in her feet.
The challenges that Urquhart faced in Antarctica were numerous. She would eat about 5,000 calories per day: a mix of powders, gels, sports bars and dehydrated food she had brought from home, as well as the meals she could access in the Union Glacier camp.
Accommodation came in the form of a two-person tent which she shared with her husband, but the continent’s 24 hours of sunlight in the summer months, combined with the sound of howling winds, were hardly conducive to a good night’s sleep.
Clothing was also crucial. Urquhart would usually wear four layers – two thermal tops, a fleece and a windbreaker jacket – but had to pay close attention to her body temperature while running.
“It’s really important obviously not to get too cold because you’re at risk of hypothermia and frostbite,” she explains, “but it’s actually also about not getting too hot.
“If you get too hot, then you sweat; sweat can make you really cold, even freeze on your skin in some situations. And then that can lead to hypothermia as well.”
Happily, Urquhart’s body soon adapted to the physical rigors of running 30-plus miles each day, and she never tired of looping around the same 10-kilometre (6.21-mile) route, instead finding it almost therapeutic.
“I kind of enjoyed the fact that it was something that was familiar in that unfamiliar world of being in a polar region that could constantly change and vary,” she says. “It was actually quite comforting to me.”
Finding comfort in the face of hardship and struggle is a skill that ultrarunners acquire quicker than most, especially in a sport which requires resilience to trump pain and mind to conquer matter.
“It fascinates me that something so profound and so special can also be so tough,” says Urquhart. “It’s like a two-edged sword, and Antarctica is the same. It has such beauty but is also so brutal.”
Still unsure about what her next running challenge will involve, Urquhart is currently dedicating herself to empowering more girls to participate in sport.
Run Antarctica was launched to increase awareness for young women who find sporting environments stressful or intimidating, and she has set a target of raising 1.5 million Australian dollars (about US$990,000) for charity.
“Confidence is a real issue for females,” says Urquhart. “Feeling self-conscious, body image issues. And a sporting environment provides a great opportunity to learn skills, not only physical skills but mental and resilient skills as well.”
This formed a huge inspiration behind her record-breaking run in Antarctica, taking on a challenge that no other woman had attempted before.
“It was actually showing what females are capable of doing and that we can push our limits, we can explore what’s possible,” says Urquhart.
And what better way of doing this than running mile after mile – after mile – in one of the most savage, inhospitable places on earth.
