I’m on top of the world, at the bottom of the world
Clonmel native Seán Tobin not only completed the planet’s most extreme running event, the Antarctic Ice Marathon, he also did it in the fastest time ever recorded
IT’S a strange feat indeed to end up on top of the world at the bottom of the world, but for record-breaking Antarctic Ice Marathon champion Seán Tobin, that’s exactly how it panned out. In December, he became the fastest person ever to complete the 42km distance in the planet’s most extreme running event, beating the second-place finisher by over half an hour. His time of two hours, 35 minutes and 33 seconds would be impressive on the streets of Dublin or Boston – but with snow and ice underfoot, temperatures dropping as low as -14C, and often obscured visibility, it seems miraculous.
Seán, 28, from Clonmel in Co Tipperary, takes it all in his stride, literally and metaphorically, but what makes his achievement even more remarkable is that this was the furthest he had ever run. A former Irish champion at 1,500m and 10,000m, he has also run a sub-four-minute mile, but nothing can truly prepare you for the extreme challenge he embraced.
‘When I was training before leaving, I would try go out in shorts, and limit my
‘It was kind of a unique challenge to have something different to do’
layers of clothing a little bit, just so I kind of got a bit more adapted to the cold feeling,’ he says from home in Dublin.
‘That, I think, is the unique thing about the ice marathon. You can’t really prepare for it, you’ve just got to go in and do it. There’s nothing much you can do besides trying to be fit.’
He was invited by the race organiser, Richard Donovan from Galway – who himself completed the first 100-mile run within the Antarctic Circle in 2011 – to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen becoming the first man to reach the South Pole.
‘Richard has been a big supporter of mine since 2018, when I came home from college in the United States,’ Seán says. ‘He has supported me financially to concentrate fulltime on running, so it was mainly for him.
‘It was a fun opportunity to do something unique. I’ve been struggling a lot since early 2021 with hamstring tendinopathy. While trying to make it to the Olympics [the postponed 2020 Tokyo Games], I got hurt and missed a lot of time. I got back a bit earlier in 2022 and then got hurt again, so it was kind of a unique challenge to have something different to do, with less pressure, but a good test for the body as well.
‘It was an enjoyable one. Certainly, rather than going into heavy competition right away, this was a great choice.’
Seán started running when he was eight and after finishing school won an athletics scholarship to the University of Mississippi – affectionately known as Ole Miss – in the small college town of Oxford, 260km north of the state capital, Jackson.
‘It has a very special feel to it,’ Seán says. ‘It is a great community, and everything revolves around the university, so it was a special place. ‘My degree was called general studies, so I did three minors – business, education and criminal justice. I never really knew what I wanted to do afterwards. I think that’s a cultural thing in Ireland that we’re trying to change. You’re expected to work and you’re expected to do other things while you’re trying to train, but to be at the highest level, it’s extremely difficult to do that. It’s okay to be a profes sional athlete and that’s your profession.’
That fed into uncertainty when he came back to Ireland in 2018, because he was unsure of where the future would lead.
‘Like many others who have gone down the scholarship route, you come home and you’re a bit lost and you don’t know what to do,’ Seán says. ‘Obviously, I wanted to continue to run and that’s when I met my coach, Phelim Kelly. He took me in and gave me a place to stay, and Richard Donovan was
helping me financially. Both of them were a massive help in my life, in terms of getting me back on my feet, getting training and pretty much chasing the Olympic dream.
‘I put a lot into trying to qualify for Tokyo in 2020. Then the pandemic hit and everything got cancelled. We couldn’t get into events, so that was quite difficult.
‘I was in the rankings to make it to the Olympics in the 5,000m but I missed out by about six spots. That was the hard part, extremely tough.
‘I knew I had it in me to qualify, but for the last two months or so, I was dealing with my hamstring issue. I just was racing in pain all the time trying to qualify and with Covid going on, it was much harder to get in for physio and other treatment. By the end of it, I just knew that the body wasn’t able for any more. Even if I had qualified, I don’t think it would have been a positive experience.’
Now, with April’s London Marathon in his sights, where he will set off in the elite athletes group, and the marathon in Paris 2024 the ultimate goal, the window of opportunity to head to the Antarctic was irresistible.
Never mind running there, it’s no easy feat to just get there. Seán left Ireland on December 8 for the 24hour trip to Punta Arenas in the far south of Chile, via Madrid and Santiago. After a few days there to rest and prepare, including one more than was anticipated because of weather conditions, the entire race group flew on a chartered propeller plane for the 4.5-hour trip to the ice runway at Union Glacier at almost 80 degrees south latitude.
The camp there, usually home only to scientists, sits at about 700m above sea level, so altitude sickness wasn’t an issue.
The group slept in tents, but conditions are fairly basic and there is little in the way of any life beyond micro-organisms. Anyone expecting penguins would be sorely disappointed.
The 42km marathon is laid out as a 10.5km circuit that must be completed four times, with nothing but blue flags to mark out the route.
‘I did not expect underfoot conditions to be so difficult, and it was kind of because the visibility was so low as well,’ Seán says. ‘It was like running in a field when it’s pitch dark and you just don’t know where your footing is going to go.
‘It’s basically like lots of holes and you’re being thrown around all over the place. You nearly have a fear of running fast because every time you try to pick up the pace, you just don’t know when your legs are going to go from underneath you.
‘Each time we went around, it got more difficult. By the time I got to the second lap I realised the course had got a lot worse, and then the third lap got worse again. By the time I got to the fourth, the combination of tiredness and the ground was extremely difficult.’
All competitors had to wear snow goggles or strong sunglasses to avoid snow blindness, and every centimetre of skin had to be covered to prevent frostbite. Rigorous checks were conducted to make sure everyone had appropriate attire and equipment. Monitors and health teams patrolled the route to ensure competitor health and safety. Seán laughs as he recounts how one such team mistook pink insulation tape he had stuck to his face as the early stages of frostbite.
Unlike a standard marathon, where a hydration station would just be trestle tables full of bottled water, that clearly wasn’t possible. Seán did manage to grab some water from a tent but spilled some on his face, which caused a little concern because it freezes so quickly, and also managed a few packs of energy gel to keep going.
In retrospect, he feels he probably should have taken more on board, but he was conscious of his time. ‘If I had made one of those stops, I probably wouldn’t have got the record, so I was aware of that when I was going around,’ he says.
As for a shower, you get a bucket of boiling water that you have to adjust by adding snow to make the temperature bearable. There’s a hole and a stopper in the bucket, and once you open it, you have two minutes to get washed. ‘I made a complete mess of it because I filled up the bucket and turned on the shower when it was boiling hot!’
Back home, Seán’s partner of a year and a half, Nicole, and his family were anxiously waiting for news. Communication is by satellite phone, with calls costing around €40, so talk was at a premium. In a competitive and often singularly focused world,
Nicole has made a big difference to Seán’s life at home in Dublin.
‘It has honestly been great to have the routine, and have things to take you away from the sport a bit,’ Seán says. ‘I enjoy my social life within the training group [the Dublin Track Club]. When you’re a full-time athlete, you enjoy a simple lifestyle. Nicole is not an athlete, but she enjoys her own kind of activities – cycling, running and stuff. But she’s working full-time and then she supports me from the side.
‘She is gaining an understanding of the lifestyle and the sport and she’s been very supportive of it. It’s nice to be able finish training and not have to explain everything we’ve done in the day, just be able to come home and relax. She’s been wonderful when I’m out, and having food ready when I get back.’
Nicole, naturally, was also concerned about the Antarctic race. ‘She was very nervous about it, because obviously we didn’t know what to expect,’ Seán says. ‘I think she was expecting -30C, so I think she was a bit of a nervous wreck. I kind of wanted to soak up the experience of just having no contact and not having the phone, and that probably was a little unfair on her as well. I let her know when we were leaving and then obviously called right away when I came back.’
She had better get used to absences, though. After a couple of days with his family in Clonmel, Seán is back in Dublin and has started training again in earnest. He plans to complete at least one marathon on each of the seven continents, though wisely has ticked the toughest box first.
For now, as the rest of us worry about hints of a snow returning, for Seán it will seem positively balmy...
‘I wanted to soak up the whole experience’