Local runner Lucker overcomes all in Antarctica marathon
Dec. 22—As a longtime distance runner, Ryan Lucker had occasionally considered taking his talents to the Antarctic Ice Marathon. What adventurous athlete wouldn't want to embark on a 26.2-mile journey a stone's throw away from the South Pole?
But given Lucker's job as a physical education teacher at Ridgeview with a rigid schedule, and the sky-high entry fees for the competition ($21,500 for next year's iteration), competing had never seemed like a realistic possibility.
"Maybe someday when I retire or something I'll go for it," Lucker had thought. "Let's just check back in 30 years."
That timeline got accelerated by 29 years and 11 months when local lawyer Daniel Rodriguez, Lucker's wife's boss at the Bakersfield law firm Rodriguez & Associates, offered him his spot in the marathon at a heavily discounted rate just over a month before it was slated to begin.
And so on Dec. 14, there was Lucker against the backdrop of endless ice, running through some of the most absurd possible conditions for a marathon. "My slowest time ever," he wrote in a social media post after the race. He still finished in fourth place as the top American.
Lucker and Rodriguez had gone on a run together once before. Lucker, a former Stockdale and Cal State Bakersfield runner and eventual cross-country coach, recalled pushing Rodriguez to his limits and preventing him from slowing to a walk at all — "That's definitely a memory he's going to have forever," Lucker said.
It clearly made a lasting impression. Lucker said that when Rodriguez was unable to claim his spot in the marathon and the organizers wouldn't let him defer entry or get a refund, he promptly ceded his spot to Lucker.
Even though Lucker, a veteran of more than 20 marathons, had taken some time off running — he had been dealing with a back issue until February — he did not hesitate. As soon as he had cleared it with his wife and his school's administration, he was ready to go.
"In my mind, I could do anything," Lucker said. "I can at least finish. But at the same time, I'm going to go out there and do my best. I've done other marathons with absolutely no training and been able to finish them."
His meager training opportunities were rendered even less substantial when he suffered a calf injury on Nov. 18 prior to the Turkey Trot in Tehachapi that made it "hurt extremely bad" whenever he tried to run, up until the day of the race.
Lucker's mother, Leslie Puryear, said she "thought he was about half crazy" when she heard what he was doing, but said that Lucker's natural ability has carried him through plenty of past marathons.
"He's always one for an adventure," she said, "so I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised."
The process of traveling down to Antarctica for the marathon consisted of a pre-race briefing stint in Punta Arenas, Chile, prior to a flight down to Union Glacier. Lucker bonded quickly with some of his fellow runners, who ate breakfast together and have since stayed in touch via a WhatsApp group called the Breakfast Club.
"I have never loved a group of people this fast in my entire life," Lucker said. "These people were all awesome. Everyone who was there was awesome. We didn't have phone service, so you didn't have the distractions of social media and things like that."
When Lucker arrived in Antarctica, he wasn't intimidated by the 15-degree weather. A Tehachapi resident used to the cold, he added that Antarctica wasn't even windy like his town. But Lucker was put off by the terrain. He said that the tires or treads of whatever vehicle had been used to groom the ground had left it much less stable than "pretty much everyone who was there had hoped." He compared it to a less sticky mud.
"You were working twice as hard," he said.
The other surprise was that Lucker was competing with a "future Olympian" in Seán Tobin, an Irishman who so vastly exceeded the pace of his competition that he finished a full lap ahead of Lucker and set a continent record at 2:53:33.
"He wasn't stopping. It seemed like there was no resistance to him. He was just a monster," Lucker said.
Those following the race at home had to rely on any news they could get out of Antarctica. The organizers relayed periodic bits of information on social media, which left Puryear and her mother "basically screaming at our Facebook."
"I was following along with them, and they were doing updates every 30 to 60 minutes, so you kind of knew where your person was at that point," she said. "... My mom and I were on the edge of our seats."
Lucker overcame severe cramping in the final lap to finish fourth at 4:08:56. After crossing the finish line and changing out of his layers, he ran back through once more with the American flag for a memorable photo opportunity — shirtless, in the shortest jean shorts possible. His friend had offered him $20 to run in them.
In the more serious hours that followed, Lucker found himself crying on and off from the sheer magnitude of the moment. He wasn't the only one.
"It's a great feeling, and it's very emotional," he said. "And so when I saw Seán's interview and saw him do the same thing, that just made me feel so much better."
The end of the race was far from the end of Lucker's journey. The Breakfast Club is already talking about reuniting for a North Pole run.
Reporter Henry Greenstein can be reached at 661-395-7374. Follow him on Twitter: @HenryGreenstein.
