Howzit Cape Town!!! Hello everybody from a freezing cold Arctic Circle.Today I feel literally on top of the world(where I am of course) as I have become the 1st South African and African to complete The Grand Slam as well as the 1st South African and African to run a marathon at or in close proximity to both the North and South poles. The race itself was held at Camp Barneo,a Russian base camp situated on the floating ice flows of the frozen Arctic Ocean.The camp was at 1 and a half metres above the ocean and will dissapear in 4 weeks time when the ice becomes to unstable. The race was conducted in near - 40 degrees (est temp was -38 deg celsius according to the Russian camp commander,Viktor Peronofsky).I saw him outside once going for a pee in minus 33 degrees with no shirt on whistling to himself.Crazy!! The course consisted of soft snow in most places and at times your legs would just give way and you would sink into the snow.Some ran in snowshoes,others trail gore-tex shoes with yaktrak grips(such as I did). Whatever the case nothing made navigating the extremely challenging  course any easier.Some competitors finished in way over 12 hours,which is ok in terms of the daylight as it is daylight for 24 hours.2 competitors withdrew due to the severe weather conditions. A press release will be released by Reuters through the organisers shortly and their are some awesome photo’s on flickr mikeking northpole marathon 2009. A further report will follow.Just a bit tired at the moment and wanted to get the results posted.Sorry, by the way I finished  5th in my worst ever marathon time of 5 hours 35 minutes. Cheers for now from a cold,beautiful, white Spitsbergen in Svalbaard(Norway) in the heart of the Arctic Circle.It’s busy snowing at the moment.Angelo