{"id":532743,"date":"2026-01-21T18:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532743\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T18:30:11","slug":"pointer-alum-takes-on-new-extreme-athletic-challenge-antarctica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/532743\/","title":{"rendered":"Pointer alum takes on new extreme athletic challenge: Antarctica"},"content":{"rendered":"

POINT LOMA \u2013 Sean McKaveney has many titles he shares with others, including high school and college quarterback, law school graduate, and attorney. <\/p>\n

But one of his titles is shared by few in the world: extreme athlete.<\/p>\n

A 2011 graduate of Point Loma High School, McKaveney recently returned from one of his most interesting and challenging adventures \u2014 the Antarctic Ice Ultra, a 50K race across the frozen surface of Antarctica in sub-zero weather.<\/p>\n

Wanting to live without regrets, McKaveney said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if I could do it, so I signed up right away.\u201d <\/p>\n

While there weren\u2019t many others in the event, McKaveney crossed the finish line in a time of 7 hours, 55 minutes to win his age division.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the hardest marathons in the world,\u201d McKaveney said over a recent breakfast back home in San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a six-hour flight in a Russian cargo plane from Cape Town, South Africa, to the deepfield part of East Antarctica and landed at a Russian research base called Novo Station. The plane had metal seats and exposed wiring, and they purposely did not heat the interior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antarctica is not a vacation spot. The lowest temperature ever recorded on the planet was in East Antarctica: -135.8 F, in 2010. At these temperatures, steel shatters and water explodes into ice crystals, and coastal regions have recorded winds of 185 miles per hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On race day, McKaveney was actually wearing some of his specialized clothing for the first time. He described his feelings as runners lined up as \u201cexcited but very nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the race, McKaveney wore two sets of head and ear covers with a polarized sun mask, a muff that went around his face, a long-sleeved thermal base layer covered by a wind-breaking running jacket, a thermal pair of running tights, a wind-breaking pair of sweatpants, and ice running shoes with micro spikes on the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sean McKaveney was Point Loma High\u2019s starting quarterback in 2009 and 2010. (Photo by Scott Hopkins\/Special for Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Since this was only the second such race, McKaveney had to decide what to wear and bring by looking at previous runners online, and brought some backup gear, but with San Diego\u2019s climate was unable to test most of it.<\/p>\n

And there were challenges along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin minutes of starting, your hands go numb,\u201d McKaveney noted. \u201cYour core temperature heats up, but you never stop feeling cold. Your lips are chapped, and severe sunburn is actually a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKaveney had to add and subtract his specialized clothing along the route at stations. \u201cSweat would turn to ice and induce hypothermia, so it was a very tricky balance between not getting too hot or too cold to prevent sweating.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be sure, there was pain during the race, starting in McKaveney\u2019s hamstrings and eventually going down to his legs and ankles, an experience he termed \u201cpain valleys.\u201d For this, he downed salt tablets, about once per lap, and never felt he was not going to complete the race.<\/p>\n

When he crossed the finish line, and the euphoria of his accomplishment began to subside, McKaveney went back to the accommodations provided only to learn the pipes were frozen and no showers were available. Another competitor had wet wipes, which he used to clean up a bit, but found himself unable to sleep well in the 24-hour daylight conditions.<\/p>\n

Three days after the race, McKaveney and seven others flew in a small propeller plane for 1.5 hours to the coast, where they then hiked a mile to a location of a colony of emperor penguins who had rarely seen humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a top-three moment in my life,\u201d McKaveney said. \u201cIt was priceless. Nobody gets to go to this setting; it was just absolutely otherworldly breathtaking. I closed my eyes, listened to the wind, felt the cold in my bones, and just listened to the thousands of penguins who made a purring sound around us and tried to internalize that feeling forever because I know I\u2019ll never go back.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKaveney\u2019s other ultra events include runs on the Great Wall of China and a downhill run after hiking up to a base camp at Mt. Everest. He has traveled to all seven continents.<\/p>\n

His future interests include an ultra run to the North Pole, a 100K run, and Ironman competitions.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POINT LOMA \u2013 Sean McKaveney has many titles he shares with others, including high school and college quarterback,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":532744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,236066,236067,812,1582,276,10505,236068,87847,129799,3549,7264,236069,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-532743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-anarctica","tag-antarctic-ice-ultra","tag-antarctica","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-exclude-homepage","tag-extreme-sports","tag-point-loma","tag-point-loma-high","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-sean-mckaveney","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115934516619547478","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}