Race Report - 503km Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra 2023

26 Mar

This is what ‘bottom of the well’ looks like.

It’s the face of the man who has come to the painful realisation that it is time to ‘choose his regret’.

Exhausted, freezing and trapped.

Exhausted - I’d managed roughly five and half hours sleep, mostly in the snow, over the last four days of hard racing. Your problem solving capacity has devolved to the most basic of levels - fundamentals only. Food, warmth, navigation, progress.

Freezing - fair to say that my beard had reached maximum ice density. Mid afternoon the sun would begin to sink and from around 4 pm the temperatures would make their mad dash down to the mid -30s, to weigh upon the landscape until mid morning when the sun could finally punch back through and lift us to somewhere around a balmy -15c.

Trapped - physically, mentally and emotionally. I was as far from the start line as I was from the finish line. Roughly 250 km either direction. You simply can’t turn back.

You can stop but then what - stand there and freeze. Even if you reach a point where you are certain you cannot move another step forward - you actually don’t have a choice. No one is coming to get you. Your only hope is getting to the next checkpoint, anywhere from one to two marathons away. 

So you have to keep moving.

Choose your regret - in other words, what can you bear?

This was my dilemma. 

I simply could not map out a viable path forward to the finish. The pain, the cold, the expanse, the sheer volume of kilometers and days. I couldn’t arrange the pieces in my mind in a manner that allowed me to thread the needle and find a way to the finish line.

So you can quit or you can suffer on with little hope.

Which can you bear?

The pain of failure - that’s a buy now pay later scheme. The pain ends, the suffering ends, the equation is solved. Until it isn’t. When you’re home and warm and recovered and the doubts flood back. You were so far in, what would you give to get back to that point, to make a different choice. It always hurts more to thaw out frostbitten fingers than it does to get frostbite in the first place. 

Or the pain of progress - seemingly no way forward. No viable path. Just more deprivation. A seemingly Sisyphean task. The likelihood of crossing that finish line and claiming a finishers medal seems so remote as to be laughable. 

I made a decision.

I stole a line from a book and did two things. 

But first, how did we get to this point?

I approached this race with a very different mindset to the preceding two Arctic Ultras on my resume. I had stood on those start lines simply to go the distance. To execute and finish.

I stood on the start line of the 503 km Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra to race. I was here to insert myself as far up the food chain as possible, straight out of the gate.

Ironically ‘straight out of the gate’ is where the problems started. 

The countdown from ten and we’re off. I knew what pace I wanted to hit, how that should feel and roughly where that should put me. The Gods laughed.

First 20 kms are upriver, into a solid headwind, soft snow and wind powered excoriation. Warmer than expected. Harder than expected.

I could hold my pace but the exertion was too high.  Breathing heavy, beginning to sweat which is an absolute no-no in subzero temps. What was wrong? Training had been spot on but a bout of Covid and then a decent cold in the months before the race had obviously left some lingering scars on the engine. 

A half marathon later and we finally peeled off the river to be faced with a 16 km climb up what was contentiously referred to as a ‘hill’ by the RD and a ‘mountain’ by every other sane human. When I finally spotted the burning torches that marked the coming checkpoint at Laxforsberget, I was battered and stunned. I was close to my race plan - I wanted to get here at 6pm and arrived at 7pm but the cost had been much higher than anticipated. I had spent much more than planned and was deeply concerned about what this race would be demanding in the coming days. 37 km done, 466 km to go.

I held fast and left little over an hour later. No sleep tonight, strong downhill leg, then a full marathon of undulating hills and finally another stint on the river as we made our way to Jockfall under a stunningly clear night sky. 

Made it to Jockfall at lunchtime on Day 2. No sleep, well humbled. Spent three hours eating as much food as possible and attempting to sleep, but the mind was an unwilling accomplice. Ninety minutes of fitful ‘rest’ was all it would condone. 

The next leg was where the dichotomy of this race really raised its head. The route from Jockfall to the remote and isolated Polar Circle Cabin was both beautiful and brutal. A blissfully short 31 km leg that crossed frozen lakes and headed deep into the vast wilderness of the Laplandian Arctic. 

As a silent fog settled overhead, shrouding the trees and compressing the horizon under a full moon, the lack of sleep and relentless incineration of calories takes its toll. Cold penetrates and lingers, legs begin to protest in a deep and sustained manner. Vision begins to flicker.

Polar Circle Cabin seemed lost, always hiding behind the next copse of trees. When it finally deems you worthy of its presence you stumble into the warm log cabin - greeted by medics and crew for the obligatory check over, water top up and the blessedly hot meal. 

But there are rules. Athletes eat outside. Athletes sleep outside. This isn't the Marriott sunshine. 

Scoff your meal hunched in the snow. Lay out your bivvy, crawl inside, wearing everything. Foolishly left my shoes next to my bivvy and when I crawled out two hours later they were frozen solid. Like shoving your feet into a steel glove encased in a block of ice. Visit the long drop outhouse, top up the thermos and flasks and hit the ‘trail’

It was 3:34am, 42 hours in. 3 hours of cold and fitful sleep. 

The next two legs, from here to Overkalix and from there to Lansjarv were my undoing. 

I could relay all manner of experiences over the 69 km to Overkalix and then the crushing 57 km to Lansjarv but here are the highlights.

I made my way to Overkalix fairly certain I would not step back out of that checkpoint. The 185 km loop completed, the thought of heading out on the far more remote and challenging 315 km loop seemed a folly beyond comprehension. I stumbled into that checkpoint a little over 20 hours after I left the Polar Circle Cabin. I’d attempted an hour long bivvy in the snow that was thwarted by cold and the requirements of a very poorly timed yet apparently furiously necessary bodily function. Now hallucinating, questioning why God in his wisdom kept moving Overkalix further and further away as soon as I got anywhere near it, I finally shambled into the checkpoint. 

Passed medical, eat my meal. Decided to sleep. No decisions in the immediate. Always eat and sleep and then think.

I managed about three hours of complete ‘black out’ sleep. It was like I stepped out of time and all existence and when I woke three hours later my body and mind did the seemingly impossible. They informed me that we should get up and get going, back out and see what we could muster. We had time and daylight, let’s not waste them and see if we can squeak out a few more kilometers. We most likely would not make the finish but every km was another tiny victory.

I messaged my wife, ‘I’m in total survival mode, don’t worry about my pace or if I stop regularly, I’m just trying to find a way to stay upright and get a little further down the trail. I’m ok, I’m safe, the goal is to see where I can get to before it becomes insurmountable.’

The 57 km to Lansjarv was the breaker. Seventeen hours, deep into the dark. A seemingly never ending stretch of switchbacks and rolling hills. A town that remained stubbornly hidden from me. Two hours from the town, I became somewhat convinced that I had perished and was in Hell, a never ending loop of uncompromising trail that sucked my sled backwards as I foolishly pushed forward. How do I make it end?

I hate it here.

Lansjarv was where I came to choose my regret.

Followed my rule - got in, ate as much food as possible. We were in a community hall, I grabbed a brief shower and slept on a hard bunk. I managed almost four hours of blacked out non-existence until one of the race crew nudged me awake, ‘You said if it got to 6am and you hadn’t surfaced, then I should surface you one way or another’ And it was 6am. I was being surfaced.

The fact that I was at the front end of the race with only the long limbed and always happy German, Stefan, in the checkpoint with me was completely lost on me. Who cared, I wasn’t going to make it anyway.

Time to choose what I could bear.

Quit, survive and take the L. 

Or suffer and face an unknowable fate in the wilderness.

I made a decision.

I stole a line from a book and did two things.

The line was by Patrick Rothfuss, from The King Killer Chronicles.

‘I split my mind in two and lowered myself into the Heart of Stone’

I split my mind in two. 

Part of me would move forward under the assumption that failure would be waiting out there anyway so just do the best you can. 

The other part demanded that we continue to execute as though we would finish. And finish strong. Eat when you should, hydrate, move, execute. Step up and play. The other part of your mind could entertain all manner of scenarios but we would drive now, and drive hard.

The Heart of Stone.

I left the checkpoint ahead of Stefan. In first place (for the on-foot athletes, the lone competitor on a bike was well out in front - only to be disqualified post race, but that’s another story).

The body was now simply a vessel, a vehicle to be driven, to serve a singular purpose and not have a say. Either it remembered who we were and what we were capable of or it broke. Either was fine. My mind was encased in a Heart of Stone.

For the next 21 hours and 74 km I held the best pace I could, Stefan 2 km behind me. No matter what either of us threw at the task neither of us could break that seemingly elastic band. I could not shake him, he could not reign me in. 

Finally, a mere two kilometers from Leipojarvi, as I searched in my sled bag for my backup headtorch, my main one frozen solid, Stefan cruised up beside me. And for the next 2 km I came to see the folly of my ways and the joy of what lay ahead.

We walked together, and chatted and shared horror stories of the preceding days and nights. Laughed, cursed this checkpoint that never showed. It was simply the best part of my day. I came to see that whilst I had kept Stefan at bay for a leg, he was in great shape, great spirit and could turn those long legs on and leave me should he need to. I had played my best hand and he had navigated it. 

We walked into the checkpoint, had ‘dinner’ at 530am, slept for a few hours and had breakfast. We joked, and enjoyed a luxurious can of Coke. The concept of racing faded away. In its place came the joy of shared experience and adventure. New friendship and perspective. 

Stefan would leave a few hours ahead of me, we would then leap frog each other for much of the next day until he carved out a four hour buffer coming out of Natta Varra.  For another 24 hours he held that gap before extending it in the final leg to finish in first place and roughly 8 hours ahead of me. 

The 48 hours from Leipojarvi through the final three checkpoints of Natta Varra, Polar Circle Cabin 2 and Rikti Dokkas, were spent keeping Stefan within reach, third place Max at a distance and trying to soak in the experience of being present rather than self immolation in the pursuit of the final step on the podium. 

I powered along under the northern lights, sought refuge in empty snow laden log huts in the middle of timeless forests, crossed frozen lakes and static rivers. Stripped the fat from my bones and granted myself the bear minimum of rest. I lived in my Heart of Stone as I willed my way forward. 

On the final night, as my vision doubled I would resort to micro-naps. SImply undo my harness, lie back on top of my sled and set my phone alarm for seven minutes. 

I would look up at the stars and drift to sleep within seconds. Exactly six minutes later I would wake, just before my alarm. Every time. Get up, turn alarm off, harness on and walking within seconds. That six minute nap would buy me roughly two hours of forward progress. Then we repeat. Over and over until the sun finally broke the horizon. And with it, the knowledge that it would be over before it set. 

I covered the last five hours into the finish line at Overkalix with very mixed emotions. 

I was exhausted, frustrated at the seemingly never ending trail, the finish line that simply seemed to never arrive. Then I would be angry at my lack of presence, how could someone who had experienced what I had experienced be anything but grateful. I had reached what only a few days ago seemed like a fantasy. I would reach the finish line, claim my medal and second place. Behind a man whose victory made me as happy as my own success. 

I had managed to do what I had set out to do - I came to race and did just that. But raced in a manner that required conquering of self and not another. It felt healthy and positive, leaving room for presence and experience - not the blinkered tunnel vision of the singularly obsessed. 

I crossed the line not with elation or tears or screams - just the dire need for a burger and the quiet comfort that comes from knowing it was over. I swore that my sled would get sold and that I would never subject myself to being that cold and tired again. After accumulating almost 1500 km of competitive Arctic Ultras across three races, with two podium finishes, I felt it was enough.

Stefan and I sat in the hotel dining room and shared a lunch together. And as the winds rose outside and the snow fell, we both sat silently. 

Staring out. 

As if we had both left something behind in the wilderness. 

Or someone. 

The question is whether that person will rest out there.

And for how long.

Quick Stats.

Distance - 503km

Steps - 746,406

Time - 8 Days, 4 hrs

Result - 2nd place overall

Lowest Temp - Minus 34C

Total Sleep - approx. 14 hours