Dean Schuster has always looked a things a little bit differently. Where many a tech-inclined individual considering a move might have thought of settling in Palo Alto, CA, Austin, TX or just outside of Boston, MA, Schuster, a Connecticut native, turned his sites south and decamped to Columbia.
Now proudly a Palmetto state “lifer,” having settled in and raised a family in Irmo, the co-founder of Truematter, a 10-year-old technology firm, has built a solid reputation as a man who goes the extra mile for his clients, many of whom are Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 firms.
Now he’s on the verge of a no less surprising and exciting adventure, having decided to travel more than 4,200 miles – and to the bottom of the world – to pursue another of his passions, marathoning.
Schuster’s already run in many of the most high-profile running events, including the New York and Boston Marathons. In all, he says he’s run in at least 20 such races. But when he pulls on his running shoes on March 9, 2012, he’ll be a participant in a race that is truly like no other.
He’ll be running in the 2012 Antarctica Marathon, and he’s not just running in the 26.2-mile race, he’s doing so to benefit a conservation organization dedicated to the study and preservation of Antarctica’s penguins.
“It’s a completely wild adventure, right?” Schuster says, his voice brimming with excitement a full six months before he embarks on the long and often difficult journey between here and the starting line.
While his professional life revolves around “usability engineering and interactive development” – “really a fancy way to say we do a lot of mobile applications and high-end web work,” Schuster makes it plain that if he had his druthers, he’d love to be a full-time marathoner.
“I started running later in life, relatively speaking, at 36, and I did so for the express purpose of running a marathon and checking it off of things I wanted to do,” he says.
But as he trained for that race, Schuster quickly discovered that he loved the effort, and by the time he actually hit the pavement for his first race, marathoning had become a passion.
“In the years since, I’ve participated in a lot of high-profile races, and I’ve gotten into trail running, which is more of lifestyle choice than a racing pursuit – I can go out on a trail and run for hours and hours, and that’s my thing, my hobby, my fitness regime,” he says.
The Antarctica Marathon is presented by Marathon Tours & Travel, an organization that has been offering travel adventures to runners on all seven continents for over 30 years. However, the Antarctic marathon may be its most challenging event.
Held in cold, inhospitable and often extremely windy conditions, the sensitivity of the environment means the race is run under numerous restrictions – including that no more than 100 people in total can come ashore for the event at any one time.
Given how few people can participate, the marathon is sold out for years in advance, with a few slots held open for each race for those, like Schuster, who are running for a cause related to environmental protection, sustainability or the battle against climate change.
“There are all kinds of reasons I’m doing this,” Schuster explains. “As a runner, I am drawn to the challenge, to the fact that it is exotic and difficult to do. At the same time, I love the natural world and I want to see an extreme part of it.
“But more to the point, what I am really excited about is getting to do something I love while also supporting the real world, on the ground, conservation of wonderful animals,” he says.
Schuster has committed to raising $30,000 on behalf of Oceanites, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose efforts are focused on science and education about the world’s oceans and islands and the species that populate both.
Since 1994, its major project has been keeping an inventory of the penguin populations that call the Antarctic home.
“Conservation of anything, anywhere requires specimen assessment and monitoring of existing populations so that changes can be detected, and if they happen to figure out precisely why they are happening,” said Ron Naveen, Oceanites’ CEO.
“The goal, of course, is to assist wildlife managers fashion rules that are appropriate to ensuring the animals are preserved and protected and don’t become threatened,” he said.
The group is monitoring populations of Adélie, Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins, species that have been dramatically and uniquely impacted by the accelerated warming in Antarctica in recent decades. While the numbers of Adélie and Chinstrap penguins are plummeting in what Naveen describes as “a statistically significant way,” the Gentoo, which has a far more varied and adaptable diet, seems to be thriving.
“These penguins in a way are like canaries in a miner’s cage,” Naveen says. “They are sending messages to us that things are changing, and we are trying to understand more precisely why this change is happening in a certain way. That’s why support like that of Dean’s is so important.”
Which might beg the question, isn’t holding a marathon in such a fragile environment self-defeating?
“It is a fragile environment,” Naveen concedes, “but it is also a very large place – about the size of the United States and Mexico combined – and the location where the marathon is held is in an area that is also already populated by scientific research stations.”
The runners are also subject to numerous rules on race day, including that they bring nothing onto the continent that they are not taking away with them when they leave, Schuster says. Runners departing from the U.S will stop in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when they check-in and attend a mandatory briefing on the rules and regulations governing the race and all human activities on Antarctica.
From there, the runners will travel to Ushuaia, located at the southern tip of Argentina, then travel by boat through the Beagle Channel across the notoriously rough Drake passage to the Antarctica peninsula.
The marathon course is located on King George Island, directly off the tip of the peninsula, on gravel roads connecting scientific research bases of Uruguay, Chile, China and Russia.
“The beautiful thing about what the marathon organizers are doing is that it is reinforcing the sensitivity to human impacts,” Naveen says. “I think there is a real sense among everybody involved that in order to understand the real value of a thing, you need to experience it and, in this case, to do so through a zero-impact event.”
Schuster says that in order to raise the $30,000 for Oceanites, he’s approaching family and friends as well as individuals and corporations.
“I’ve also embarked on a campaign of outlandish things to gain attention,” he says with a laugh. “For instance, I ran the Governor’s Cup half marathon here in Columbia in a full penguin suit – trying to gain as much notoriety for my cause as possible.”
Schuster also ran the recent Habitat for Humanity 10K in a head-to-toe penguin costume – still managing to win his age group while doing so.
“I’m also partnering with the Riverbanks Zoo, where in December I will be ‘running with the penguins’ for an entire day,” he adds, noting that fundraising efforts will also benefit the zoo’s Conservation Support Fund.
During the event, which will be held on December 10, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Schuster will be running on a treadmill in the penguin enclosure while interacting with zoo guests and children via a microphone.
“I should tally about 50 miles over the course of the day,” Schuster says. “It should be crazy fun.”
To further promote his effort, Schuster has also started a web site,
www.runningwithpenguins.com.
But wacky events and good times are only part of the lead up to the race. Much of the rest of Schuster’s free time will be training to endure Antarctica’s extraordinary weather conditions. Before too long, he says, he’ll begin training in a sub-zero freezer.
“When the weather is truly awful, that will be my go-time,” he says, his enthusiasm not waning for a second. “What good is an adventure without a tough goal,” Schuster says.