Last month, Walt Pheeney left Farmington Hills for Antarctica to run in a race called The Last Marathon.

Pheeney, a 60-year-old veteran of marathons and triathlons, joined 115 adventurous athletes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the trek to the white continent. For him, it was an 18,000-mile round-trip from Michigan.

From Buenos Aires, they flew to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, then boarded a Russian research vessel; their home for the next 10 days.

"The whole trip was scheduled for 17 days," Pheeney said. "On the return trip, it was delayed two additional days when we got trapped in a Force 12 storm while crossing the tumultuous Drake Passage, hitting 70-m.p.h. sustained winds and 40- to 50-foot waves."

The marathoners cruised the inlets and fjords of the mainland of Antarctica while listening to talks on the marine life and research. They took at least two excursions a day by Zodiac, an inflatable rubber craft, to various parts of the continent, witnessing everything from whale, seal and penguin activity to exploring icebergs, climbing glaciers and running the marathon.

Icebergs of amazing bulky shapes and deep-blue hues characterize Antarctica. It has crystal clear yet intensely cold water, mountainous snow and ice-covered rock formations rising precipitously out of the ocean. In March, Antarctica has 18 hours of sunlight followed by a jet-black night with a star show one could never imagine.

"I was a quick convert to the fact that this was the most pristine, unspoiled, foreboding yet picturesque place on earth," Pheeney said. "I was humbled to be among the lucky few to have ever experienced this grandeur and beauty. I reflect on the whole Antarctica journey and realize that most everyday concerns seem somehow insignificant."

The native inhabitants are Gentoo penguins, crab-eater seals, humpback whales, albatross and skuas. Albatross and skuas are large marine birds. There are no polar bears or any other land-dwelling animals. Only those that find their food supply in the ocean survive there. There are no plants or vegetation.

The Last Marathon was scheduled for March 3, but a predicted whiteout storm forced organizers to start the race a day early. That morning provided a window of reasonable weather. (Reasonable is not a long-lasting adjective in Antarctica.)

The temperature at the start of the marathon was similar to what Pheeney found training in Michigan during this unusually cold winter.

It was the end of Antarctica's summer season.

His running gear consisted of trail shoes, wraparound sunglasses, a protective coating of petroleum jelly on his exposed skin and moisture-wicking thin layers under windproof Goretex.

The figure-eight-shaped course led through Russian, Uruguayan, Chilean and Chinese research outposts and up a one-mile glacier on two occasions. It had many more hills than Pheeney anticipated.

The footing was mostly a few inches of loose snow on top of hard-packed snow. Sometimes the course went over ice, especially on the two glacier climbs. With the high winds, snow drifts developed in strange places, and with everything white in all directions, the drifts were difficult to see until the runners were knee-deep in them.

There were no mile markers and minimal course markers. They would get covered with snow, and the skua birds would steal the flags and markers. The seals insisted on receiving a wide berth, and the penguins just thought of the runners as ugly seals. The far turnaround points of the figure eight were either at the top of a glacier or at a research outpost. There were no aid stations. If you wanted something you carried it. Runners were encouraged to have four water bottles to deposit along the course to use on the subsequent loop.

The start and finish line was a large pole in the ground in the middle of the figure eight at a Russian research outpost.

Many runners stopped at the half-marathon point. One runner fell on a glacier and suffered a broken arm. Of the 115 entrants, 59 finished the full marathon. Pheeney completed the race in 4:53, almost 1:15 off his typical time. The overall winner, Bogdan Barewski of Poland, ran a 3:33. The slowest runner finished in 7:42.