SAN ANTONIO, Fla. — Donna Holas started her worldwide quest in Madrid in 2014. Her journey will come to a frigid end in two weeks in Antarctica when the Florida runner will complete a half marathon on her seventh continent.
“I’m nervous. I’m anxious,” she said. “It’s been a challenge training in 80-90 degree weather.”
Holas, 55, runs in San Antonio, Fla. It’s not nearly the same climate as the sub-zero temperatures she’ll face on March 17 in Antarctica. She runs a few days per week up the largest hills she can find near St. Leo University and hopes to fall back on her past experiences to complete the final leg of her global trek.
“It was something that I said that I would do but I never thought that I would finish,” she said before a training run Friday morning. “It’s like a feeling that I can’t describe.”
She ran her first half marathon five years ago alongside her daughter, Nettisha, in Europe. She ran events in North America (New York City) and Asia (Great Wall of China) the following year and followed those with a Half Marathon in Africa in 2016.
Back spasms nearly ended her run early in Kenya.
“I thought I was going to quit. The pain was that bad.”
She checked off South America (Rapa Nui) and Australia (New Zealand) in 2017. She did not run a race at all in 2018 to prepare for Antarctica.
Holas books all over her races through a worldwide company called Marathon Tours and Travel.
All the trips impress her friends.
“They think it’s a wild adventure.”
Holas is an Army veteran who served two years in the military. She was stationed in Germany.
She has all the medals she’s received at the finish lines of her previous six half marathons. She calls the Queenstown, New Zealand, race the most beautiful of her six and the run up the Kenyan hills as the most difficult.
“They all were special. They all had their unique beauty.”
She cherishes the photos along her journey, like the one she stopped to take atop the Great Wall of China.
Holas will be one of 200 racers to complete the half marathon in Antarctica. She said temperatures could dip below zero for much of the race. She’s been training in sand to simulate snowy and muddy terrain.
“This is it. My seventh continent.”
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