Race Antarctica
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is a very unique organization with its staff based in the UK, two ships at sea and across five locations in Antarctica. It can be a challenge to come up with organizational activities that bring these groups together. In 2010 a group of three people in the organization came up with an idea for a race that would take place over 10 weeks that would allow teams from all these diverse locations to participate.
Activities for All
The concept was a race across antarctica which would cover 6000km in 10 weeks. Being an Antarctic organization there are many very fit people at BAS. We needed to make sure that it was an inclusive race that wouldn’t automatically allow cyclists and skiers to clean up. The idea was to determine a series of ratios based on the calorific usage and relative time efficiency of the form of exercise. We wanted it to allow people who maybe weren’t as fit to go for an hour’s lunchtime walk and get similar credit to someone who has gone for a 20 minute run.
| Exercise | Ratio | Real Distance | Game Distance | Time Taken |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Running | x3.0 | 3.25 | 9.75 | ~15-25mins |
| Walking | x4.0 | 2.5 | 10.0 | ~ 25-35mins |
| Cycling | x1.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | ~ 25-30mins |
| Rowing | x1.5 | 6.5 | 9.75 | ~20-30mins |
| Cross-country Skiing | x2.0 | 5.0 | 10.0 | ~20-30mins |
Over the course of five years we adjusted ratios and eventually got it into a very nice pattern where it started to encourage people to walk a little bit longer at lunch or maybe even try a lunchtime run.
This also allowed us to have activities specific to ships and stations that could be calibrated against the UK. On the ship you were limited to a small gym or walking around the ship. We could include rowing machines, exercise bikes, and even weight lifting.
Route across antarctica with team progress
Team Based
The race was designed for a team size of 6. A team of 6 should be able to complete 600km a week which is 100km a person. For a regular person’s activities during a normal week the weighted activities could map like this:
- Commute in by bike each day - 5km each way for 5 days - 50km
- Weekend walk to town and back - 6km -> 24km
- Lunchtime run - 5km -> 15km
- Lunchtime walk - 3km -> 12km Total - 101km.
The race wasn’t meant to be gruelling, it was meant to encourage activity and setup some nice team comeptitions.
Team standings at the end of 2015
And competitive it was! People really got into the spirit of it and the station vs ship vs UK generated some really fun rivalries.