Redhead Amok in Antarctica
Futbol in a Box
Every Thursday after work, before dinner, a small collection of us Polies collects in the gym to play soccer, or football as it is known in the rest of the world.
We must be insane.
Of course, in the darkness and the cold and the wind it is not possible for us to play outdoors. Even in the summer Polar Futbol is played inside. Just because it is in the relative warmth of the station does not make it any easier. Though I do imagine the outdoors soccer would be more of a killer. We'd have to be wearing much of our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) Gear, and the run to fetch the out of bounds ball would be unimaginably hard.
So we keep it in a warm box: Jeremy, Robert, Ross, Nathan, Emily, Jonathan, Camille, Weeks and me so far. We don't all show up every Thursday and Sunday, but enough of us to get a game going do, and some extras to spell those of us dying on the court.
Why do I think this is insane? Imagine, if you will, a warm well-lit gym, a basketball court with blue deeply padded walls and markings on the floor for various sports: from volleyball, to whiffleball, to basketball. It is not the warmest room on station, but with the heat of effort we are soon thankful for the slight edge of Antarctic chill hovering on the air and radiating upwards from the cold floor. The goal for soccer is not more than a 3 foot square duct taped on the wall under the basketball net.
Played two on two or three on three, we soccer players face off against each other over an aged dirty white soccer ball with blue tape striped across and around it. The game starts and we are off and running up and down the court, charging into each other, mashed into the corners of the gym fighting over the ball at our feet. The "5th mans" we have along the wall, square padded pillars, add extra corners and unexpected rebounds of the ball. Some of the guys are good enough that they can use the walls to pass the ball to their teammate, but most of the time it surprises us when we boot the ball and it comes right back at us at speed, or ends up somewhere completely out of target. It's a different game altogether from outdoor soccer.
Less than 2 minutes later we are all gasping and panting like asthmatics, or chronic and aged sufferers of COPD, bent over supporting ourselves hands on knees. Already I am dying for a break, but the game goes on. There's no sneaking up on an opponent when your lungs are gasping and wheezing so loudly, struggling for breath. The game quickly slows down, and the ball races across the gym ahead of us with no one running after it. It's quite comic really, and I feel only slightly bad for being so out of shape and old when the younger fitter men also struggle much the same way.
We are playing soccer in a box at altitude. And as far as I am concerned there's not enough oxygen on the plateau for all of us. Sometimes my need is so dire I can see stars, or perhaps they are oxygen molecules, I wouldn't know, I'm probably also hallucinating. We have frequent breaks for water. None of us is visibly sweating. It is too dry here for sweat to do anything but expire and disappear instantaneously from our pores. We are red-faced, gasping, and feel heated, but there is no evidence of moisture. But it must be so, because soon after soccer ends, I find myself struck with a headache of monumental proportions from the dehydration. I do drink during the game, consuming in 30-40 minutes of playing almost the entire litre bottle of water I brought with me.
It's a great way of spending extra aggression, by barging into a padded corner with a man almost always taller and better than myself and struggling over possession of the ball. It's far easier to get all up in their face about it than chasing them and the ball all the way down the court.
I've been promised it will get better, easier even, to find the oxygen necessary to survive a soccer game, if I keep on going regularly to the games. And I will. I enjoy this version of soccer, and the company I'm playing it with.
Afterwards it is easy to tell the soccer players, even from out of sight, hours afterwards. We are the ones coughing, vigourously clearing our throats and frequently sounding like we are trying to hack up a lung. My lungs are raw, my throat dry and my chest aches with the work I had to do to hunt down and inhale the few dessicated oxygen molecules we have here at Pole.
But it is a very satisfying way to spend 30-45 minutes twice a week.
posted by: coldwish at 06/13/09 09:52 |
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south pole waste winter 2009
