Four things I screwed up in my first 600km Arctic Ultra - but nailed in my second.
A tale of two races - on the left, 2017 the face of a man about to have the happiness smacked well and truly out of him. On the right, 2019, a man with a plan, time to execute.
Firstly, a shout out to my great friend and Arctic Ultra racing compatriot @whittlefit for his blog on equipment advice for the 6633 Arctic Ultra - a blog that inspired me to put down these thoughts on what I got wrong, and right, after two seasons racing in the frozen reaches of the Arctic Circle.
1. RUN YOUR OWN RACE
Sounds simple enough - but get this one wrong at your own peril. I made this mistake early and hard in 2017 and it carried with it costs that bore poisoned fruit as the kilometres piled up and the hours dragged into days.
Races like these - epic ultras - don’t happen in finite isolation. The build up is often many months, if not years, of planning, training, sacrificing, visualising - and then, suddenly, as if by time travel, you’re on the start line. As they say - it all comes down to this. 3…2…1….go. The nerves kick in, that little voice in the back of your mind starts to chirp - are we too slow, too fast, why is that person passing me, how is that person still on my tail - should I rest here, push it, back it off, what’s everyone else doing? It will go on and on if you let it.
In 2017 during my first attempt I did exactly that - fretted when people passed me, worried about the people closing in behind me. Worried about my pace in comparison to theirs, doubted my own strategy as I saw what others did differently to me. It cost me - my pace vacillated as I tried to catch people I didn’t need to, and then stressed as I tried to stay in front of others for no purpose. By the time I hit Wrights pass on the morning of the second day I was already well cooked, having mentally and physically expended crucial energy for little reward.
Two years later and I came armed with a very different plan. I started the race dead last - on purpose. The very back of the pack, because once they said go, in my mind every other competitor would simply…disappear. There would be only me and the race before me - a plan to be executed in isolation from all others. I didn’t care what others did, who passed me or when, whether I caught everyone or no one. I was there to run my race, according to my plan and it was liberating.
Run your own race - mentally this takes away all the stress of constantly re-assessing and comparing, of questioning and doubting. Physically it saves you from falling into the trap of pushing when there is no need to, or it isn’t prudent to, or slowing down when you shouldn’t.
Know what your race will look like and be confident enough, bold enough to stick with your plan.
2. THE CHECKPOINT TRAP
pic credit @weronikamurray
The Ultra world equivalent of a Black Hole. You step into the checkpoint and the space-time continuum flexes and bends. You step out a ‘few minutes’ later to discover that years have past in the racing world outside.
Even though the checkpoints in the 6633 supply nothing more that shelter from the wind and hot water - they were also a mental and emotional sanctuary, respite from howling wind and bone cracking cold, from the harsh reality of how much more work there was to do and the environment in which it had to be done.
But the clock never stops, so go in with a plan and stick to it. Do what has to be done, do it efficiently and then get back to the real work. This isn’t about the amount of time you spend at a checkpoint - it’s about the unnecessary or unplanned time you spend there. Whether your plan is 5 minutes or 5 hours doesn’t matter - it’s about sticking to the plan.
In 2o17 I spent a criminal amount of time at checkpoints without purpose or doing things that could have been done on the move, on the trail. In 2019 as I approached the checkpoints I would be rehearsing in my head what I needed to do, how long it would take, the order I would do everything and when I would be back out on the trail. Do the work. Be disciplined.
3. DISCIPLINE IN ALL THE SMALL THINGS.
In a race this long - all 614km of it - small, repeated inefficiencies can quickly mount up, becoming time destroyers, energy depleters and slowly grind away at your already under-assault mental fortitude and resilience. You must develop Yoda-like mastery of managing the myriad of minutiae - eliminate the wasteful, harness the useful, turn every task into a jaw-dropping display of zen artistry. And none of this control or discipline can be ‘developed’ during the race. Just like you don’t get ‘pack-fit’ on the multi-day hike to base camp on big mountain expeditions, you don’t suddenly become disciplined on race day (or week as the case may be) because you suddenly decide to be so - this all happens in training. The discipline to test, measure, discard, practice - relentlessly.
In 2017 all manner of small tasks would require me to stop, however briefly, to address or action them. Change layers, add/remove gloves, eat, drink, find hand warmers, adjust my sled harness, set up my bivvy. In 2019 I was determined to execute a very different race behaviour - and there are an inordinate number of opportunities to save yourself precious time and energy. Here’s two examples.
Sleeping - my sleep strategy was 3 naps per day. In the real world that sounds epically indulgent, unfortunately not so much in the Arctic. I would have two 20 minutes naps (morning and afternoon) during the day and a longer sleep 40-60 minutes during the night. The remaining 22+hours per day were spent racing, relentlessly. Day after day. The efficiency came in the process from deciding it was time for a nap to actually being asleep. I had trained the process down to 90 seconds.
From making the mental commitment of ‘OK I’m going to stop to have a nap’ to having set up the bivvy, being in the bag, alarm set and drifting off was 90 seconds. Every time. When the alarm went off again, usually 20 minutes later, I would be back on the trail, bivvy packed, harness on and moving within 90 seconds. Sounds a little crazy but if you go through this process 3 times a day, every day - especially when you are on day 5 and 6 and 7, exhausted, hallucinating, freezing, being so disciplined saves you precious time exposed in the cold, helps keep you focussed and conscious of the fact that you are actually in a fundamentally dangerous environment, where small careless mistakes can not only be race ending but can quickly escalate to injury, potentially severe and permanent. Discipline in all things.
Stay moving - by the time I stood on the start line in 2019 there was very little I couldn’t do whilst on the move. A combination of having refined what and where I stowed key equipment to knowing how to move and adjust my harness so I could execute the most mundane and regular tasks. I could prep a freeze-dried meal, eat it, wash the thermos and pack it with the next meal all without needing to stop. I could change layers, take them off, get new ones, add gloves, balaclavas, hand warmers - all within immediate reach. On the first day it was quite warm - a positively balmy -15c, dragging my sled uphill out of Engineer Creek I was heating up, so I dropped the shoulder straps on my harness, took off a layer, turned around in my harness, walked backwards as I rolled up the jacket, stowed it in a bag attached to the poles leading to my sled, turned back around, reset my harness and soldiered on. Did not miss a single stride. Small acts like that not only save time but they are small, crucial mental and psychological victories. Small tasks executed as per training, tick. Do not underestimate the cumulative value of those small repeated wins, they are the mortar that reinforce the very foundations of your resilience in the face of the onslaught of these kinds of races.
4. USE YOUR ACCELERATOR WISELY.
For a long time I was terrible at pacing races, or workouts, or my life…. Before tackling my first 100km trail ultra I heard a little nugget of advice that stuck with me and has served me well since. The advice was to think of pace as an accelerator, the most efficient way to accelerate would be to gradually apply greater and greater pressure to the accelerator pedal, so that by the time you reach the 3/4 mark of the race you are only now achieving maximum pace. In other words, stop being a leadfoot and trying to light the tyres straight off the start line. I’m sure that any number of experienced trail runners will take this advice as self-evident but for those of us who have to learn the hard way - the virtue of this approach took some time to sink in.
Being a nerd I analysed the daylights out of all the race data I could lay my hands on for the 6633 - after looking at every competitor for every year of the race two themes become evident when it came to pacing - everyone had a positive split (a slower second half compared to the first half). It was the section from Inuvik to Gateway where pretty much everyones pace falls into the toilet. There was an average variance of 8 mins/km from a competitors fastest pace to their slowest pace between checkpoints (excluding rest time at the checkpoints), the swing usually being between 9mins/km to 17mins/km. Typically the first day of the race saw their fastest pace and the 6th or 7th saw their slowest.
From all of this, and based on what I had achieved in training I was determined to reduce that variance to no more than 2 mins/km - for the entire race. My plan was to move at 11mins/km at my fastest and 13mins/km at my slowest. That meant having the discipline to be seemingly slower than everyone at the start but be the diesel engine for the second half that simply did not stop.
How that translated in reality was this - by the time I caught the lead group about 8 hours out of Aklavik (about 380kms in with roughly 230kms to go) I felt I had plenty in the tank in regards to capacity and pace. I felt capable of opening up and pushing my pace, finally coming into Inuvik I felt the strongest I had since the start line. That gave me the mental and emotional fortitude to deal with what was to come - the final two sections that tried - and almost succeeded - to crush my soul into the permafrost and grind my body into dust. Had I taken off and hung with the lead group right from the start I would have been toast coming into that final third.
5. (BONUS POINT) STOP, LISTEN AND TAKE MORE PICS.
For all my talk of being a veritable beacon of discipline, a bivvy-ninja and pacing metronome - take the time to look around and realise just where you are. How fortunate you are. What others would give to be in your place - under the northern lights, alone in the vast wilderness, healthy, and living life. Take more pics, shoot some more vids. Don’t put the headphones on, listen - often to the complete silence that envelopes everything. Gratitude. Breath. Remember when all is said and done - it is just a race, so don’t forget to experience it.
JANUARY 4, 2020