Exclusive: Maggie Wilson Shares Untold Details About Her Antarctic Ice Marathon Experience

Julia Arenas

December 29, 2017, 12:15 PM

Scores of runners have been known to finish full marathons worldwide quite regularly. However, only a courageous few have dared to finish the Antarctic Ice Marathon, the world’s southernmost race, an annual winter white challenge set to test even the most experienced of runners in three race divisions—the 21-km half-marathon, full 42-km marathon, and the daunting 100-km challenge.

Former beauty queen and now Pinay fitspo and TV host Maggie Wilson had everyone caught off-guard last November as she surfaced seemingly out of nowhere as the first hot Filipina to finish the despairingly cold Antarctic Marathon. In contrast to the sexy beach and bikini photos we’re all so familiar with on her feed, a faceless, all covered-up somebody emerged online in fuchsia winterwear, proudly waving the Philippine flag.

“Anyone who knows me, who really knows me, knows that I am not a fan of running,” Maggie laughs at the obvious irony. “I mean, I do short distance like 5 or 10ks mostly for exercise but I’m not the type to join races or marathons.” The scheme behind Maggie’s participation was all owed to her husband Victor Consunji, an avid long-distance runner who just happened to be ticking continents off his race bucket-list.

“So his idea of fun is to run a marathon on all seven continents and Antarctica was going to be his last continent. He said, ‘I want you to come with me,’ And I was like ‘of course, at least I can say I’ve been to all seven continents,’ and then Victor goes ‘Well, the price will be the same whether you run or you don’t so you might as well get a medal out of it.’” As for the well-kept secret on her participation, Maggie deliberately chose to keep it quiet to keep the pressure off. “I actually didn’t tell anybody I was going to do it out of the fear that I might not finish (laughs). Also, when I got to Antarctica, I hadn’t even fully decided whether I was going to do it or not.”

"When I got to Antarctica, I hadn’t even fully decided whether I was going to do it or not.”

But then, of course, what are husbands for? “He sort of planted the seed in my head: ‘But if you do run, you’ll be the first Filipina to do it,’ and I was like, ‘Hmm…ok, okay…’ My husband then told me, ‘Listen, if you feel like you can’t do the full, you can always just do half and get a medal for that.' I was like, wait a minute, mom and dad didn’t raise me to be a quitter, so I’m going to do it! And yeah…I finished.”

Here is the full video of Maggie Wilson's epic Antarctic Ice Marathon finish.