英语书籍：The Coolest Race On Earth（一）ZT
英语书籍：《The Coolest Race On Earth》 by John Hanc 简介：
What would induce hundreds of people from all over the
world to spend thousands of dollars each and two weeks of
their lives just to run a marathon in Antarctica?
Especially one with a reputation as the toughest marathon
on Earth?
John Hanc may have the answer. When he turned 50 he gave
himself the birthday present to end all others--a trip to
the end of the Earth to run his most unforgettable race.
"The Coolest Race on Earth" is both Hanc's story and the
story of the Antarctica Marathon, first held in 1995 and
now an annual event that sells out years in advance. It's
full of humor, adventure, and inspiring characters--
including a wheelchair-bound competitor, three record-
breaking grandmothers, and an ex-Marine who described the
race as "the hardest thing I ever did in my life, next to
Vietnam."
Muddy, cold, hilly, the race is by all accounts horrible--
up and down a melting glacier twice, past curious penguins
and hostile skuas, and finally to a bleak finish line.
Even the best runners take longer to run the Antarctica
Marathon than any other.
Yet the allure of marathon running combined with the
fascinating reputation of the Last Continent has persuaded
runners to brave a trip across the world's most turbulent
body of water, the Drake Passage, to a land of extinct
volcanoes and craggy mountain peaks, lost explorers and
isolated scientists, penguin rookeries and whale sight-
ings, all for a chance to run those crazy 26.2 miles. "The
Coolest Race on Earth" brings the world's most difficult
marathon to life in a book that's not only a ripping read,
but also a deeply funny meditation on what makes people
run.
************
==========================
THE COOLEST RACE ON EARTH
Mud, Madmen, Glaciers, and Grannies at the
Antarctica Marathon
by John Hanc (nonfiction)
Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781556527388
Copyright (c) 2009 by John Hanc
(Part 1 of 5)
======================================
INTRODUCTION
The wind howled, and a sheet of icy snow pelted the hood of my
parka, stinging my eyes. This ferocious storm seemed to have blown
in out of nowhere and was now threatening to take me along with it.
I knew I had to get out of this as soon as I could.
Oh, how I wished I was back in Antarctica.
Instead, I was trudging through the parking lot of the New York
Institute of Technology in suburban Old Westbury. It was March 8,
2005, my first day back to work at the college where I teach
journalism and writing, barely forty-eight hours since I had stepped
off the plane home after two weeks in Antarctica--and now here I was
in the midst of a furious late-winter storm that seemed like
something out of the chronicles of a polar explorer, except it was
battering Long Island, not the Last Continent.
Down there we had enjoyed calm seas on the irascible Drake Passage
and mild temperatures in the bays and inlets of the Antarctic
Peninsula. Yet it wasn't the opportunity to sunbathe on the
Bellingshausen Sea or swim with seals that had prompted 228 people
from fifteen countries to spend an average of five thousand dollars
per person and devote two weeks of our lives sailing those remote
shores in two converted Russian spy ships. No, we were in Antarctica
to run a marathon, a 26.2-mile footrace, held on King George Island,
one of the South Shetlands, a chain of islands just off the twelve-
hundred-mile-long peninsula that rises out of the Antarctic
mainland. In doing so we were representative of a new travel trend
that some would say is even crazier than the weather. It involves
running really far in really faraway places, places where they don't
have six flavors of Gatorade, Nike outlet stores, or even paved
roads. From Guam to the Great Wall of China, from Maui to Mount
Everest, marathon runners have descended, determined to leave their
footprints in corners of the globe that few would have ventured to
otherwise.
Think about it: What motivates someone to travel seven thousand
miles, spend an almost equivalent number of dollars, and risk a fair
amount of unpleasantness (puking from seasickness, bonking from
exertion, experiencing hypothermia from awful weather) for the
opportunity to run a really long way in a place so inhospitable to
life that it barely sustains penguins, seals, and a few species of
fungi, much less a stampede of humans clad in Nikes and Gore-Tex?
It's not like we had to, after all. If one's intent is to suffer,
there are ample opportunities to do so at home, on the job, or in
the office of one's dentist or tax adviser. If running 26.2 miles is
the goal, New York, Boston, Chicago, and London--heck, almost any
major city in the world--offer annual opportunities to do so, in
settings far more conducive to the task. On the other hand, if one
wants to see exotic sights in extreme places, well, isn't that why
they invented the Travel Channel? Trust me--while it was
breathtaking, one doesn't really need to go to Antarctica to see
what it looks like, especially the part we visited, which in
relative geographic terms was what the Caribbean is to the North
American mainland, and there the comparison definitely ends.
Why anyone would want to run a marathon in what is frequently called
the Last Place on Earth is often the first question asked about this
race. For many it seems to start with a deep curiosity about this
vast continent, a place that is routinely described as the highest,
driest, coldest, and windiest in the world. Almost one and a half
times the size of the United States, Antarctica is the fifth largest
continent (at 5.1 million square miles, it's bigger than either
Europe or Australia) but dead last in terms of population. Look at
the list: There's Asia at the top with almost 4 "billion" people.
North America is fourth with 501 million. Even Australia/Oceania,
next to last, still sounds ready to bust with a population of 32
million. And bringing up the rear--and I mean, really, it's no
contest--is Antarctica, whose official population according to
WorldAtlas.com is:
Zero.
Yes, an entire continent populated by no one. Of course, that's
indigenous population--no one is "from" Antarctica. During its four-
month summer, however, there are about four thousand workers on the
international scientific bases that dot the continent. These people
shuttle in and out, because they would probably go mad (and, as
we'll see, many have) trying to live full time in Antarctica. In
addition, about thirty thousand tourists now visit over the course
of the summer season. That may sound like a large number, but
consider that thirty thousand visitors is a modest "day" at Disney
World's Magic Kingdom. It's also about nine thousand less than run
the New York City Marathon, which is held on one morning in
November. And just think, when those thirty-nine thousand people are
done running, one block of New York still has a higher population
than the entire continent of Antarctica.
Later, some of my compatriots would tell me it was this emptiness--
this idea of a great void at the bottom of the Earth--that first
captured their imagination, sparking a lifelong interest in
Antarctica. For them, it started in grade school, with the idle
twirling of the globe that was once a feature of every classroom.
Children would notice the blank spot on the bottom. They'd have to
tilt the globe or bend down to look up at it. No cities were marked
there, no national boundaries, no rivers or lakes. Yet the area was
vast, and as opposed to the bright colors of the rest of the globe,
it was pure white, as if someone had squirted a blob of Elmer's glue
on the bottom of the world and left it there to dry. What kind of
place could this be? From that point on, they were determined to
find out, to learn the mystery of the void.
I like the idea of these kids, finger on the globe, eyes gazing out
the class window, daydreaming about this far-off land of white
nothingness. I wish I could say my fascination with Antarctica began
in grade school. For me, however, the catalyst came later, much
later. Put it this way:
Some men have affairs when they turn fifty. Others go to Vegas. I
went to Antarctica to run a marathon.
英语书籍：《The Coolest Race On Earth》 by John Hanc 简介：
What would induce hundreds of people from all over the
world to spend thousands of dollars each and two weeks of
their lives just to run a marathon in Antarctica?
Especially one with a reputation as the toughest marathon
on Earth?
John Hanc may have the answer. When he turned 50 he gave
himself the birthday present to end all others--a trip to
the end of the Earth to run his most unforgettable race.
"The Coolest Race on Earth" is both Hanc's story and the
story of the Antarctica Marathon, first held in 1995 and
now an annual event that sells out years in advance. It's
full of humor, adventure, and inspiring characters--
including a wheelchair-bound competitor, three record-
breaking grandmothers, and an ex-Marine who described the
race as "the hardest thing I ever did in my life, next to
Vietnam."
Muddy, cold, hilly, the race is by all accounts horrible--
up and down a melting glacier twice, past curious penguins
and hostile skuas, and finally to a bleak finish line.
Even the best runners take longer to run the Antarctica
Marathon than any other.
Yet the allure of marathon running combined with the
fascinating reputation of the Last Continent has persuaded
runners to brave a trip across the world's most turbulent
body of water, the Drake Passage, to a land of extinct
volcanoes and craggy mountain peaks, lost explorers and
isolated scientists, penguin rookeries and whale sight-
ings, all for a chance to run those crazy 26.2 miles. "The
Coolest Race on Earth" brings the world's most difficult
marathon to life in a book that's not only a ripping read,
but also a deeply funny meditation on what makes people
run.
************
==========================
THE COOLEST RACE ON EARTH
Mud, Madmen, Glaciers, and Grannies at the
Antarctica Marathon
by John Hanc (nonfiction)
Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781556527388
Copyright (c) 2009 by John Hanc
(Part 1 of 5)
======================================
INTRODUCTION
The wind howled, and a sheet of icy snow pelted the hood of my
parka, stinging my eyes. This ferocious storm seemed to have blown
in out of nowhere and was now threatening to take me along with it.
I knew I had to get out of this as soon as I could.
Oh, how I wished I was back in Antarctica.
Instead, I was trudging through the parking lot of the New York
Institute of Technology in suburban Old Westbury. It was March 8,
2005, my first day back to work at the college where I teach
journalism and writing, barely forty-eight hours since I had stepped
off the plane home after two weeks in Antarctica--and now here I was
in the midst of a furious late-winter storm that seemed like
something out of the chronicles of a polar explorer, except it was
battering Long Island, not the Last Continent.
Down there we had enjoyed calm seas on the irascible Drake Passage
and mild temperatures in the bays and inlets of the Antarctic
Peninsula. Yet it wasn't the opportunity to sunbathe on the
Bellingshausen Sea or swim with seals that had prompted 228 people
from fifteen countries to spend an average of five thousand dollars
per person and devote two weeks of our lives sailing those remote
shores in two converted Russian spy ships. No, we were in Antarctica
to run a marathon, a 26.2-mile footrace, held on King George Island,
one of the South Shetlands, a chain of islands just off the twelve-
hundred-mile-long peninsula that rises out of the Antarctic
mainland. In doing so we were representative of a new travel trend
that some would say is even crazier than the weather. It involves
running really far in really faraway places, places where they don't
have six flavors of Gatorade, Nike outlet stores, or even paved
roads. From Guam to the Great Wall of China, from Maui to Mount
Everest, marathon runners have descended, determined to leave their
footprints in corners of the globe that few would have ventured to
otherwise.
Think about it: What motivates someone to travel seven thousand
miles, spend an almost equivalent number of dollars, and risk a fair
amount of unpleasantness (puking from seasickness, bonking from
exertion, experiencing hypothermia from awful weather) for the
opportunity to run a really long way in a place so inhospitable to
life that it barely sustains penguins, seals, and a few species of
fungi, much less a stampede of humans clad in Nikes and Gore-Tex?
It's not like we had to, after all. If one's intent is to suffer,
there are ample opportunities to do so at home, on the job, or in
the office of one's dentist or tax adviser. If running 26.2 miles is
the goal, New York, Boston, Chicago, and London--heck, almost any
major city in the world--offer annual opportunities to do so, in
settings far more conducive to the task. On the other hand, if one
wants to see exotic sights in extreme places, well, isn't that why
they invented the Travel Channel? Trust me--while it was
breathtaking, one doesn't really need to go to Antarctica to see
what it looks like, especially the part we visited, which in
relative geographic terms was what the Caribbean is to the North
American mainland, and there the comparison definitely ends.
Why anyone would want to run a marathon in what is frequently called
the Last Place on Earth is often the first question asked about this
race. For many it seems to start with a deep curiosity about this
vast continent, a place that is routinely described as the highest,
driest, coldest, and windiest in the world. Almost one and a half
times the size of the United States, Antarctica is the fifth largest
continent (at 5.1 million square miles, it's bigger than either
Europe or Australia) but dead last in terms of population. Look at
the list: There's Asia at the top with almost 4 "billion" people.
North America is fourth with 501 million. Even Australia/Oceania,
next to last, still sounds ready to bust with a population of 32
million. And bringing up the rear--and I mean, really, it's no
contest--is Antarctica, whose official population according to
WorldAtlas.com is:
Zero.
Yes, an entire continent populated by no one. Of course, that's
indigenous population--no one is "from" Antarctica. During its four-
month summer, however, there are about four thousand workers on the
international scientific bases that dot the continent. These people
shuttle in and out, because they would probably go mad (and, as
we'll see, many have) trying to live full time in Antarctica. In
addition, about thirty thousand tourists now visit over the course
of the summer season. That may sound like a large number, but
consider that thirty thousand visitors is a modest "day" at Disney
World's Magic Kingdom. It's also about nine thousand less than run
the New York City Marathon, which is held on one morning in
November. And just think, when those thirty-nine thousand people are
done running, one block of New York still has a higher population
than the entire continent of Antarctica.
Later, some of my compatriots would tell me it was this emptiness--
this idea of a great void at the bottom of the Earth--that first
captured their imagination, sparking a lifelong interest in
Antarctica. For them, it started in grade school, with the idle
twirling of the globe that was once a feature of every classroom.
Children would notice the blank spot on the bottom. They'd have to
tilt the globe or bend down to look up at it. No cities were marked
there, no national boundaries, no rivers or lakes. Yet the area was
vast, and as opposed to the bright colors of the rest of the globe,
it was pure white, as if someone had squirted a blob of Elmer's glue
on the bottom of the world and left it there to dry. What kind of
place could this be? From that point on, they were determined to
find out, to learn the mystery of the void.
I like the idea of these kids, finger on the globe, eyes gazing out
the class window, daydreaming about this far-off land of white
nothingness. I wish I could say my fascination with Antarctica began
in grade school. For me, however, the catalyst came later, much
later. Put it this way:
Some men have affairs when they turn fifty. Others go to Vegas. I
went to Antarctica to run a marathon.
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
