My alarm is set to 5:30am but I’m awake already. Well all get up and quickly pack away our sleeping bags in the frigid tent and walk back up to the cabin. There begins the morning routine that will be the norm for the next 5 days. Hot water for coffee and breakfast, race kit on, tape up feet and repack my running pack for the day with the stages race food taken out and put in my running belt. This morning, time feels tight and with the race brief starting 15 minutes before the gun goes off I’m just in time.
The morning is calm, the fierce wind from the night before abated, and whilst the sun isn’t yet peering over the high ground the temperatures feel ok, sitting around -15. The mantra from the briefing the day before was ‘be bold, start cold’ to avoid as the race director put it, ‘more costume changes than a Lady Gaga concert’. With that in mind I am chilly at the start line ready to get going on what I have been training for over the last 9 months.
Stage one is along a portion of the Kungsleden, a 450km walking trail trough Swedish lapland that is popular in the summer with hikers. The stage is 50km long with 920m meters of ascent over two main climbs.
There are only 40 runners in the event, a limit imposed by the space in the cabins we will be inhabiting overnight, but despite this small number the atmosphere at the start line is good and with a final few instructions from Kris the RD to keep earlobes covered and to watch out for each other, we are off.
The first 12km is along an ice road, my pack is heavy with a weeks food at around 9.5kg and I’m trying really heard to bound off down the road and settle into a nice 6’30”km pace. My footing on the ice feels assured since I have spikes on the bottom of my shoes. The spikes are probably not really necessary but since my shoes are a full size and half up to accommodate the thermal insoles, running socks and waterproof extreme thermal socks that are required by the rules, I thought I may as well go the whole hog. I’m warming up to a nice temperature now. The leaders have already disappeared up front and I can feel people coming up behind me. Not for the last time in this race I have to remind myself to run at my own pace. Tarryn, Andre and Nick pass me but moments later stop as Nick is clearly over heating and he needs to sort his layers. After 12km on the road we meet the first checkpoint. I haven’t really drunk much water but refresh my bottles anyway. At each checkpoint hey have water of varying temperatures but I have decided that since a fronton water bottle would be entirely useless were I to get into to trouble I will refresh at least one of my bottles with hot water to delay any freezing.
I leave the check point, Andre and Tarryn arrived just behind me, and set off down hill to out first from lake crossing. Off the ice road for the first time the footing is a little soft but I don’t think I will be needing the snowshoes. In the run up to the race I had been in touch with a friend who ran last year, he only used the snowshoes a handful of times. With this in mind I had done very little training running in the snowshoes.
After 3km the lake crossing is complete and the first big climb of the day begins. I unfold my poles and set off up hill at a quick march. There are 3 sets of footprints in the snow and one set has switched to snowshoes. It is soft underfoot and certainly uses a bit of extra energy when pushing off my toe, but equally it takes 1 or 2 minutes to put my snowshoes on and if I then take them off in a short while it won’t be worth it, will it? I carry on up the climb through birch forest, marching the ups and breaking in to a jog on the flats and downs, it is quiet in the forests, the only sound my own breathing and footsteps crunching in the snow. I’m concentrating hard on the path which has been laid by a snowmobile, trying to find the harder snow to walk on, eventually finding the sweet spot towards the edge pf the path, under what would have been the skid off the snowmobile. Another set of footprints has turned into snowshoes now but every time I think I ought put them on the path firms up and I’m moving again. I can see Tarryn and Andre right behind me, if I put my snowshoes on they will surely pass me.
As we climb out above the tree line the terrain changes, the snowscape now punctured by large boulders. I’m getting frustrated by conditions underfoot, still uneven, and I need to pee. I decide that I won’t be able to hold it indefinitely so if I’m going to be passed whilst stopped it may as well be now. I pull over to the side of the path and by the time I’m finished Andre and Tarryn have caught me. Since I have been caught by my pursuers I also decide to put on my snowshoes, given that all of the tracks ahead of me in the snow have now changed. My donning of snowshoes encourages Andre and Tarryn to do the same as I trot past them fixing theirs they ask me if its any better. “More consistent”, is all I can think to say back whilst hoping I would be able to remove them and get back to proper running soon. Little did I know but my time running without the snowshoes was essentially over for the race.
The course continued to undulate high up on to the plateau with a peak out to our right all the way to checkpoint 3. I reach the tent but decline to enter as it is hot inside, even powering in the flap to announce my arrival immediately fogs upon my glasses which then freezes immediately. I hand in a bottle to be refilled with warm water and set off walking and adding a sachet of carbohydrate powder called Tailwind. After the checkpoint the course descends again down to a frozen lake. Whilst you are in the woods you feel very alone but on the lakes you can see other competitors in front and behind and I can see someone in front. Once again I desperately try and forget about the runners around me, you can only go as fast as your training will allow and I don’t want to blow up on day one.
Checkpoint 4 is at the beginning of the last climb of the day proper, checkpoint routine complete I begin powering up. As much as I dislike climbing it would seem that my long legs are advantageous and I rapidly begin closing the gap on the two runners I can see in front, the first having been caught and passed by the second who is clearly going slow. It is really steep but the snow is hard and before long we crest the top and begin the birch forest descent. I know that the finish is at the bottom of this hill so I break into a jog.
I have been counting the footprints in the snow so put my placing at 4th, though I could have been sure more left me off up the road at the start. Nevertheless, when I see a runner walking in front I decide to push on to the end of the stage, after all a 3rd place finish would be amazing, and way above expectations! I pass Bert and a few hundred metre later the path opens into a small collection of cabins on the lake. I’m expecting to see a finish line of some sort but the trail just ends, where do I go? A man at the lake waves me up the hill to a pair of cabins where the path ends. I get there desperately looking for a line to cross to finish the stage and stop the timing, but there is nothing, no-one. After a moment Jenny comes out of one of the huts, congratulates me and gives me a hug. “Where is the finish line?” I say. “You’re here!”, says Jenny with a big smile, looking at me a little perplexed but my mind is having a hard time contemplating such a low key end to 8 hours and 15 minutes and 50km of running.
I’m led to my cabin, grab my night bag and after taking off my snow shoes head in. The cabin is warm and cosy with the stove blazing. It transpires that I had not finished 3rd, but 4th, with first place James fast enough that a snowmobile had erased his footprints in the snow. 4th place is good enough to allow me to pick the last of the bottom bunks in our cabin of 8 and I set about drying my kit over the raging stove and getting a recovery shake in.
The cabin is comfortable, the stove has made it really warm, the bunks have a thin but comfy mattresses and we have a gas cooker making it easy to heat up water. There is no electricity but we find some candles in the cupboard and by the time the cabin fills up with 4 more runners we have made it a cosy little home from home.
Comments