South Pole race took 13 hours, frozen sweat

With a fit body, sunny smile and dark skin thanks to long-term sun exposure, Chen Penbin looks no different than other long-distance runners, but the events he competes in are anything but ordinary.

The 36-year-old fisherman, a native of a Zhejiang Province fishing island, is China's first extreme marathon winner. He took the crown at the South Pole Marathon last month.

Extreme marathons are regarded by many as the "craziest," held in extreme natural conditions all over the world — the Sahara Desert, North Pole, South Pole and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, among others.

Chen, in fact, became the first person in the world to compete in extreme marathons on all seven continents. His footsteps have covered the Gobi Desert in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Sahara in Africa, Amazon jungle in South America, as well as events in Greece, Australia and the United States since 2010.

The 100-kilometer South Pole Marathon is probably the coldest in the world, as runners face the Antarctic snow and ice, sub-zero temperatures and high winds.

Wearing three layers of clothes, a pair of thick shoes, two pairs of gloves and goggles, Chen finished the 6-member race on November 20 in 13 hours, 57 minutes and 46 seconds — about two hours ahead of an Italian runner-up.

Participants navigated 10 laps around a 10km trapezoid-shaped route.

After completing a lap, they could go into a tent for supplies or change wet clothes. Chen built a solid advantage after three laps.

"It was extremely windy during the third and fourth laps," Chen told Shanghai media in an interview last week. "I was actually depressed by the running condition at the beginning, as I knew I would not be able to achieve a good result or even break the record under such conditions."

Chen had expected to complete the 100 kilometers in 11 hours, but the wind made it hard for runners to even walk in some sections. Snow softened the surface of the ice track and made it hard for Chen to use his strength properly.

The temperature never rose higher than below 30 degrees Celsius, and Chen suffered slight frostbite in his left arm.

"We sweat when running and the coldness can turn sweat into ice immediately. The skin of my left arm had been stuck to clothes by ice for a while during the race," he recalls. "If I had not changed clothes in time, my arm would be gone."