Marathoner's record chase ends in Antarctica
Mishap sidelines Guinness quest
Other people his age might want to travel to more relaxing climes, but 65-year-old Charles Monahan of Charlestown recently packed his bags to run a marathon in Antarctica.
After finishing 26-mile courses in Egypt, Chile, Ireland, and Boston, Monahan wanted to run a marathon on all seven continents. Last month, he headed south for the 2005 Antarctica Marathon on King George Island Feb. 26.
But Monahan, as he is the first to admit, is hardly a fitness guruliving on PowerBars.
''I'm an old man. I'm overweight. I'm mentally maladjusted," he says. ''I'm no speed merchant."
Indeed, Monahan weighs 265 pounds, prompting his children to call him ''two Kenyans" when comparing his size with that of other marathoners.
For him, running marathons is a longtime dream he was propelled to pursue by a prostate cancer scare in 2003. ''I've wanted to do this for 50 to 60 years," Monahan said in an interview before he left. ''Cancer was like a spur to do this. It was like playing with house chips. What do I got to lose?"
It soon became a quest for a mark in the Guinness Book of World Records. By July 2006, Monahan had hoped to have finished marathons in Asia and Australia, making him the oldest person to complete marathons on all seven continents.
But the Guinness quest ended in Antarctica. Monahan reported by phone from there last week that in the fourth mile of the race, he injured his left quadriceps while running down a glacier. He completed only half the marathon, in 3 hours and 43 minutes.
''The course was absolutely brutal," Monahan said. ''It was incredibly slippery. The beach was all rocks, and the course was a constant up and down with hills."
Antarctica is probably the most challenging course, said Thom Gilligan, the president of the Boston-based Marathon Tours and Travel, the company that has organized the icy run seven times.
Not only do runners have to run a kilometer up and another kilometer down a glacier, they have to worry about skuas, predatory Antarctic birds which Gilligan describes as a cross between seagulls and hawks.
''They prey on baby penguins and marathon runners," Gilligan joked.
Monahan, a Vietnam veteran, managed to avoid any close encounters with skuas. Still, he said, ''I flew 259 combat missions, and I've never been as afraid of anything as marathoning. It takes a tremendous commitment."
