Polar Circle Marathon, Greenland

The Polar Circle Marathon was in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland on October 24th 2009. After a full 24 hours of flying from Seattle to Washington DC to Amsterdam then to Kangerlussuaq. I was beat!!! But it was an amazing sight flying in....not much but snow and ice. The town was very small but with a history. The airport was also the hotel, bar, restaurant and gift shop. Across the street was a general store and a pizza place, yes pizza. Not the best pizza but after a marathon....it was ok. You could walk the town within a few minutes. But you didn't want to be out long, it was very cold outside. I was in my full winter snowboarding gear. 2 layers of wool socks, 2 pairs of gloves, wool pull over, down coat and insolated pants with long underwear. It was like -10 out. The first night there we all got to see the aurora borealis. What an amazing sight to see. I didn't get pictures of it, it was way to dark. In the pictures you will see the post office. It had a very huge mailbox for Santa. There wasn't a whole lot to do but we went to the polar ice cap (where part of the marathon was) to check it out. On the way we saw rain deer and musk ox. Neat animals. On night we even had musk ox burgers. Tasty. Oh and we had some amazing trout that they caught that day. The day of the race was buzzing with excitement. We were all cold waiting for the start of the race. They trucked us all out far away from town and dropped us off. We all huddled together like penguins until the gun (real gun) went off. I had a hard time getting into my rhythm but finally found it. I did well on the ice cap; probably due to my mountaineering experience. The race was rolling hills of snow and ice. I met up with a fellow runner about half way that i ran almost the last half with. Its always so nice to be able to talk with someone. At this point I realized my butt had froze. I could not feel it at all. I had gloves and a hat as well as a coat. I was warm enough. My hat froze to my head and my ponytail froze outward with sweat. Very funny to realize when I finally crossed the finish line.