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But no matter where we were on the course, the volunteers and assembled spectators were invariably rowdy and incredibly supportive.  Chicagoans, for the most part, genuinely seem to embrace the marathon and its runners, and I’m told that Marathon Sunday in October is practically a city-wide holiday.  Upon seeing my medal, several people on the street afterward were quick to smile and tell me “great job, congratulations!”Read More

There is no Antarctica Marathon, of course — not in the sense that there is a Boston Marathon or a New York Marathon or a London Marathon. It and other exotic races are the creation of Boston-based Marathon Tours and Travel, whose founder, Thom Gilligan, realized serendipitously 19 years ago how far Type A distance runners would go in pursuit of their goals.Read More

TIME MAGAZINE Back in 1995, when the first Antarctica Marathon was run, there was no Lonely Planet guide to the continent. But over the past decade, tourism to the region has trebled, according to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators.Read More

It's probably for the best that it took Thom Gilligan 18 years to offer marathoners an opportunity to run in Antarctica in February. Enticing Boston runners with an escape to Hawaii in December was a much smarter marketing strategy. Even if Gilligan is more apt to call it dumb luck.Read More

Thom Gilligan read the e-mail and shook his head in disbelief. Here was yet another applicant for the 2005 Last Marathon, the extraordinary race in Antarctica that Gilligan had conceived a decade ago. No surprise there; while the event had been closed out for more than a year, adventure-minded runners were still begging for a chance. The shock was that this guy, 47-year-old William Tan of Singapore, proposed to do the 26.2 miles of loose rock, glacial streams, and ice in a wheelchair - a feat never attempted, never suggested in the previous six editions of the race. "I thought, no way," Gilligan says.Read More