THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD: A HISTORY OF THE ANTARCTICA MARATHON
In 2001, rough weather prevented the expedition ship from putting Zodiac inflatable boats in the water. For several days the vessel attempted to reach King George Island. It could not. The 200 or so runners aboard, who had flown from around the world and paid more than $10,000 each for the privilege, were running out of time.
The solution: run the marathon on the ship's deck. A certified distance measurer mapped the route around Deck 6. Runners completed approximately 422 laps over the course of the day.
Somewhere in those 422 laps is the Antarctica Marathon in full. The logistics are extreme, the conditions are variable, and occasionally everything goes wrong in ways that require improvisation. The race has been doing this since 1995.
The First Race
Thom Gilligan, CEO of Marathon Tours and Travel, organized the inaugural Antarctica Marathon on January 28, 1995. Marathon Tours had been in business since 1979, founded specifically to serve runners traveling to races around the world. By the mid-1990s, runners completing marathons on multiple continents had one continent missing from their lists: Antarctica. There was no organized running event there.
Gilligan addressed that. The 1995 race is widely cited as the first for-profit sporting event ever held in Antarctica.
On the evening after that inaugural race, four runners declared they had just completed a marathon on all seven continents. Gilligan responded by founding the Seven Continents Club that same night. As of 2026, the club has more than 14,000 members across 117 countries, with over 1,400 runners having completed marathons on all seven continents.
King George Island
The race takes place on King George Island, part of the South Shetland Islands off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The island hosts research stations from more than a dozen countries, most of them permanently staffed. The Chilean Frei Station on the Fildes Peninsula operates as a small permanent settlement with an airstrip, post office, and year-round residents.
Runners arrive by expedition ship, typically departing from Ushuaia, Argentina at the southern tip of South America. The voyage crosses the Beagle Channel and the Drake Passage, which in 2025 delivered Category 2 hurricane conditions with 100 mph winds and 12-meter waves. Shore landings are made via Zodiac inflatable boats in groups of 100 to comply with Antarctic environmental protocols.
The course starts approximately 200 meters from Russia's Bellingshausen Station and winds along gravel roads past the Artigas Base (Uruguay), Frei Base (Chile), and Great Wall Station (China). The three-loop structure covers 42.195 kilometers across terrain that can include mud, gravel, ice patches, and standing water depending on the year.
Elevation gain is modest by ultramarathon standards, roughly 109 meters per lap and 327 meters total, but conditions offset any sense of gentleness. Temperature ranges from -10°C to +5°C. Wind chill regularly drops the felt temperature an additional six to 10 degrees. The 2024 race ran at -3°C and never rose above freezing. Icy and extremely slick, according to race reports.
The Field
The race typically draws around 200 runners per voyage across two separate expeditions each year. The two-voyage structure was designed to reduce environmental impact and allow more participants without overloading the island's limited shore access. The 2026 edition expanded to approximately 360 runners total, roughly 180 per voyage.
The race sells out well in advance. The full expedition package starts at $10,280 per person, covering three nights in Buenos Aires, flights to Ushuaia, all meals aboard ship, and the race entry fee of $250. Flights to Buenos Aires are additional.
The field skews heavily toward runners completing the Seven Continents or attempting the World Marathon Challenge (seven marathons on seven continents in seven days). Many participants are not competitive runners in the traditional sense. Winning times range from 3:30 to 4:30 depending on conditions — a range that held true when Voyage Two of the 2026 edition set off on March 19.
Blake LaBathe of the United States won the men's race in 2024 in 3:38:51. Candice Brown, also of the United States, won the women's race in 4:25:37. In 2025's Voyage One, Nicholas Husson won the men's race in 3:37:13 and Lisa Dosch took the women's in 3:55:48.
Wildlife and Environment
Gentoo penguins are a consistent presence on the course. They greet runners at the shore landing, wander along the gravel roads, and are generally indifferent to the procession of runners moving past them. Chinstrap penguins, elephant seals, and Weddell seals are common sightings. Whales and icebergs are visible during the ship voyage.
The race's official conservation partner is Oceanites, a nonprofit that tracks penguin populations and monitors Antarctic biodiversity. The race has raised over $100,000 for the organization through participant donations. All shore operations follow strict Antarctic Treaty protocols: no plastic bags or raw food items may be brought ashore, waste is packed out on the ship, and visitors are prohibited from approaching wildlife within five meters.
The race makes a deliberate point of its environmental footprint. Access is controlled, group sizes are capped, and the expedition structure limits the total number of ship voyages required.
The Two-Voyage Structure
The split into two voyages per year evolved over the event's history as demand outpaced available berths and environmental caps limited shore access. Voyage One typically runs in late February or early March; Voyage Two follows two to three weeks later.
In 2026, Voyage One ran March 3 through 16 and Voyage Two from March 13 through 26. Starting in 2024, Marathon Tours added a 50K ultra option on Voyage One, giving committed ultramarathon runners a reason to choose the earlier departure. In 2025, Filippo Faralla won the men's 50K in 5:00:37 and Karoline Hanks took the women's in 5:12:57.
The COVID Years
The pandemic forced the cancellation or disruption of the 2020 and 2021 editions. Argentina closed its borders in March 2020 with only days' notice before the scheduled race. Runners who had traveled to Buenos Aires were left stranded. The race returned in January 2022 for its 22nd running, having skipped two years.
The disruption illustrated the logistical fragility built into an event that depends on international air travel, Argentine airspace, Antarctic weather, and Zodiac landings all cooperating simultaneously. The 2001 deck marathon had already made that fragility clear. Antarctica has its own timeline.
The 30th Anniversary
2025 marked 30 years since the inaugural 1995 race. Voyage One ran March 14 with 132 runners from 26 countries. Voyage Two brought 150 athletes from 22 countries. Both voyages included a fundraising drive for Oceanites.
Gilligan's company, Marathon Tours and Travel, has operated the event for its entire existence. The race expanded, added the 50K option, increased the field size, and upgraded the expedition ship. The entry cost has risen substantially since 1995. The course and the conditions remain roughly what they were: King George Island, Zodiac landings, gravel roads, penguins, and variable weather that can produce anything from mild sunshine to ice.
What It Represents
The Antarctica Marathon has never been a race in the competitive sense. Winning times in the low three-hour range are good by recreational standards but well off what the sport's elites produce on flat road courses. The field is not built around world-class athletes.
What the race provides is access to a location and an experience that does not exist anywhere else. Participants run through an active international research zone at the edge of one of Earth's last undeveloped regions, watched by wildlife that has never been hunted and has no instinct to flee.
The Seven Continents Club now has 14,000 members because people have decided that running on every continent matters to them. Antarctica, the hardest to reach and the most logistically demanding, is the one that completes the set. The marathon is the mechanism that gets them there.
Thom Gilligan created that mechanism in 1995. Thirty years on, it runs twice a year.