Keeping warm on the ice

Press, 5 April 1983, Page 13

Keeping warm on the ice

By

RAY CAIRNS

The second or third Sunday in January — it varies — is an important day in the life' of the residents of McMurdo Sound. On that day, almost the middle of summer, when the temperature varies between nought degrees cel sius and -20 deg C 300 take part in the great Scott’s Hut Race. The race is six years old, has grown from a distance of three or four kilometres to eight km, and is just about the biggest day in the busy social whirl of the base. But one Christchurch man is despairing of ever winning the event, which is nothing like your average fun run on the (sometimes) road carpets of Christchurch. For the last three years, Corrie Tabak has negotiated the testing undulations and virtual goat-tracks of that part of the Antarctic into second place. On each occasion, he has reduced his best time, but always there has been one runner in front of him. Tabak, as with his illustrious elder brother, Tino, made his sporting name in cycling and he has national champion gold medals tucked away at home. But, now 29, he turned away from the sport nine years ago when he suffered a severely broken arm in a cycling smash, though he is now consider-

ing turning out on the opening day of the Hornby club for which his father, Gerben, is patron. For the last three years, Tabak — a tailor by trade, a freezing worker in the season — has been supervisor of the McMurdo Base catering for Huntsbury House. As with most who trot along the barren wastes of the deep south, he turned to running “simply as an exercise, an anti-boredom thing, and to keep fit, because you can put on a lot of weight down there.” He had had a year or two running for Toe H, so he did not find it difficult to get back in trim. But the great Scott’s Hut Race is not the only sporting activity in the area. Basketball and volleyball are played weekly, there is a golf course at Scott Base; bases play each other at rugby on the sea ice. But the race is the greatest participant activity. It involves running from the McMurdo Sound Base to Scott’s Hut and return twice, then out to Cosray, a hut built for the study of cosmic rays and sited halfway

between McMurdo and Scott bases, before the return to McMurdo. The coast guard and tourist ships are generally anchored off-shore watching the race. This year, said Corrie Tabak, the coast guard burst into the “Chariots of Fire”

theme as the heavily clad runners wended their ways. Precious few, maybe one a year, wear shorts; many, too, walk the route. But Corrie Tabak has given it his best shot on each occasion, and his first-up time of 32min was reduced,

last year, to 31min Isec, then down to 30min 35sec a couple of months ago. Will he keep running until he wins or until he no longer makes the summer trek to the snow? “I might have to,” he says.