Stephanie Case hates the cold. Yet, she became the first woman to run 100 continuous miles (approx. 160 kilometres) in one of the world’s coldest places - Antarctica. “I went to the coldest place possible at the end of the Earth,” Case said, with a chuckle, during an interview with CTV’s Your Morning on Friday. “But that was kind of the point.” Case completed the distance as part of the Antarctica Ice Ultra, an extreme polar running event held annually on the frozen continent. The human rights lawyer, born in Kingston, Ont., is no stranger to ultramarathons and last year won her first race postpartum, despite having to pause to breastfeed her daughter during the course. Despite the win being a “happy moment” for her, she said she received a lot of criticism for competing as a new mom. “(They said) I should have been at home and they really criticized the fact that I was doing something for myself,” she said. “It showed me just how much scrutiny there is on new moms and how they spend their time.” Wanting to prove that she can still do things for herself, she decided to lean into the accusations. “Do something even more extreme and go to the end of the Earth to try to set a record where no woman had ever set one before,” Case said. Code Red The plan was to be in Antarctica for five days. However, within hours of arriving, participants were told that they would have to start the race at 1 a.m. that same night, without time to sleep and prepare for the event. “There was a huge stormfront coming through,” Case said. “They called it Code Red.” Case and the other runners had 24 hours to complete the race, after which they would have to leave. “We were going to be lucky if we were even going to be able to complete the race after all.” The race Case said she began her race at “one of the coldest parts of the night,” at about -25 C. “The temperature did rise during the day,” she said, adding that it would dip again later to below -30 C. “The race organizer said it was the coldest edition they have ever run.” Case said the wind wasn’t as bad as she expected, but “the conditions were certainly harsh.” To fend off sunburn from the midnight sun exposure - at the South Pole, the sun remains visible for 24 hours between September and March - Case stuck kinesio, or kinesiology, tape on her face and repeatedly applied Factor 50 sunscreen. “I had a former competitor tell me to even put sunscreen up my nostrils because it was that strong,” she said. “I still got sunburnt.” The course, she said, was a 4.2-km loop that she had to run 38 times, as well as an extra 300 metres to complete the race. She attributed her ability to complete the race to her time spent in Afghanistan working for the United Nations. “I was living in an armed compound and I could only train in loops,” she told ABC News on Thursday. With the medal - and title - on her mantle, she shared her pride at her accomplishment. “It is possible to come back stronger,” she told ABC News.
