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a marathon . This trip must have required some serious planning and travelling .
MJVR : Very much so . I flew into Europe via Germany , but unfortunately , that morning when we were supposed to land , they had protesters on the runway in Frankfurt , so they diverted us to Düsseldorf , where we sat on the plane for two hours before eventually flying to Frankfurt . By the time we got to Frankfurt , I had missed my flight to Oslo , and this was during the Paris Olympics , so Europe was buzzing with flights and delays and everything else . The problem was that they couldn ’ t get me to Oslo within the next two days because I had missed that flight , so they had to fly me via London instead .
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summers that we experience here in South Africa . One of the photographers on the trip was actually born on the island of Svalbard , and he said at the North Pole , there ’ s one day in the year when it rises and there ’ s one day in the year when it sets . That ’ s it , which is quite amazing for me . I never thought about it like that . I know that they ’ ve got the dark winters , and they ’ ve got the light summers , as they call it , but to have that one day of the year when it rises and
The North Pole Marathon is the only certified marathon that is run entirely ‘ on ’ water , and it is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the Northernmost Marathon on Earth . The first edition of the race was run in April 2003 , and the inaugural Summer edition was added in 2023 . To date , there have been 17 editions of the race , with the upcoming Spring and Summer editions in 2025 planned to be the 18th and 19th editions . The event now offers a full marathon as well as a marathon relay , half marathon and 5km distances . A total of 589 people from 54 countries have successfully completed the event , with 558 ( 448 male , 110 female ) completing the full marathon distance . For more info , visit www . npmarathon . com .
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sets , that you can actually see it doing it , that ’ s quite amazing . But apart from that , it ’ s either light or it ’ s dark .
SF : Did the constant sunlight affect you ? For example , were you able to sleep at night , so to say ?
MJVR : Yes , I was okay . I think the main thing for me was trying to stay in my routine , and it helped coming from South Africa , because we were only an hour out on the time zone from Norway . But the US guys in the team that I train , and who travel with me , they were all over the place and I really felt sorry for them . I think they had a six- or seven-hour time difference . I just stuck to my routine , and thankfully the boat had some good blackout blinds , so I could get some good sleep .
SF : Now , let ’ s talk logistics … because it ’ s not like you can just hop on a flight to the North Pole , catch an Uber to the race venue and run
A pre-race pic of the marathon field on the ship
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That meant I went almost in the opposite direction , to London , and that night to Oslo . Then the next morning , I got another three-hour flight from Oslo to Longyearbyen in the Svalbard Islands , which lie about halfway between Norway and the North Pole . There I joined the cruise ship that would take us to the North Pole – I think we were around 200 passengers on the ship , and about 50 of us were running the marathon , while the rest were just taking the cruise to see the North Pole , Iceland , Greenland and all that . It took us three days from Svalbard to get to the North Pole , and it was a wonderful experience , because we were on a luxury cruise ship , but I didn ’ t expect it to take that long to get there , to be honest .
SF : In terms of equipment that you need to run a race like this , you ’ d already done the Antarctic Marathon , so am I correct in assuming that you didn ’ t need to stock up on cold weather running gear , or do that much research on what you needed ?
MJVR : I think what I learnt from Antarctica was very important , notably that the right shoes are crucial , and trail shoes are built for this kind of thing . Gone are the days where the guys run in snow spikes and things like that . A good pair of trail shoes with GORE-TEX uppers is your best bet , to keep your feet as dry as possible . And then obviously the same theory of layers applies to clothing – ideal is to have thin layers , so you can strip or add layers easily . Because we ran the race
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Images : Susan Ragon & courtesy North Pole Marathon |