Every week, SportsIllustrated.com posts a collection of recent photographs.  Last week, amidst the hockey and NFL shots, this one appeared, taken by Alexey Malgavko last week at the Russian Orthodox Christmas Half Marathon.

Held every year since 1991 and also known as the Siberian Ice Marathon, the 2011 race attracted 565 intrepid runners from all across Russia.  The unfortunately-timed road race takes place in the city of Omsk, the birthplace of writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, landlocked in the West-Central region of Russia, just North of Kazakhstan.  On this day, the mercury measured a teeth-rattling, lung-shrinking, beard-riming -22ºF, or -30ºC.

To me, this picture is worth far more than a thousand words or the only-God-knows-how-many words Eskimos have for ‘snow.’  More to the point, for running in temperatures that low, I’m not sure if this man should be commended or committed…

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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