"Forth, and fear no darkness!"
"Errr, King, o King, Sir, which darkness?"
Laponia Triathlon. A tiny event,
far out in Swedish Lapland, 67° North. Ranked
2 on my "Big 5"list of the most northern long distance races
of my home planet. I finished rank 1, Lofoten Triathlon, in 2017, rank 4 and 5,
Norseman and Oppland Xtreme, earlier before. Rank 3 place didn't work well last
year, so I´ll have to be back there. But
now we are in Gällivare. You need a little time to get here. Flight to
Stockholm, then 13 hours by night train.
When you wake up in the morning and look out of the train window, you
hardly believe what you see. The track takes you through a landscape that makes
you think that you are still asleep and dreaming, hard to describe to those who
haven´t been there...
 |
| Somewhere
out there. |
Of all the special things about
this race, starting under the midnight sun is probably the most special one. Even
if you know that it is there, about 100km north of the Arctic Circle, you are
completely unprepared how it actually feels. You see no morning, no evening,
you walk under an almost unreal light all day, like it was constantly close to
sunset. And of course has the start been set to 0:00h, so you race through the
night without even realising it.
 |
This already
includes the short walk to the start area. 22:30h! |
Meanwhile the weather turns to
the worst, it is cold and starts raining already at the bike check-in. In fact,
it only rains once: all the time… The swimming distance was shortened to 750m
because of 13°C water temperature, 3°C in the air temperature don't make it
better. It's wet anyway, so at least it can't get any worse.
 |
| Those are
lucky, who already got their wetsuits on... |
I
have quite often had to swim in cold water, 14°-16°C are more than likely in
Scandinavia, but this time I was definitely glad to get out of the warer after
17 minutes. All the faster swimmers did not want to get out, but not the water but
the heated transition tent, first come, first warming up. The result is a
spectacularly long transition time of more than 20 minutes. Today I laugh about it, but that's another thing which
has to do with to the second transition 7 hours later.
Outside on the bike course it is
cold and lonely. We all have to struggle with 3°C and continuous rain. Soon there
is only one question I keep thinking of: how the hell I should run without feet?
Well, I can already tell: I kept them… The loneliness is easily explained: 43 athletes
on 179 km result in wide gaps. It is only close to the two turning points that you
see anybody at all.
 |
| The Lapland
strategy: Put on every piece of clothing that you brought with you! And hurry
up... ©Laponia Triathlon |
But still: Oh, what a bike
course! It is certainly not the hardest in the Xtreme Triathlon Circus, it is
not the steepest, the highest, the longest. But never, and I mean NEVER, have I
ever experienced such an unreal beauty around me during the bike leg. Enchanted
by the hypnotic light of the midnight sun, an endless, silent wilderness
spreads out in front of me, behind me, around me. I keep looking for reindeer
and moose, but apart from a few fresh droppings on the road there is nothing. They
are probably not as mad as we are, going out in this weather...
 |
| Back in T2
after about 7 hours. Even here you feel tiny... |
My
second transition takes even longer than the first. Thank God the organizer
provided a heated room. I need 30 minutes to do this, my transition bag has to
be opened by volunteers because there is no feeling in my fingers anymore. 5
out of about 8 fellow athletes who joined me in the booth give up the race at
this point. In the end, only 27 of 43
starters manage to cross the finish line...
Meanwhile I heard that the
running distance has also been shortened, 11km leading up Dundret and back down
have been cancelled, due to dangerous weather conditions. I must admit that I
am not too unhappy with that decision... Nevertheless it's still 31km which
have to be run. I only have to get through somehow, but it will hurt.
 |
| Out there in
the middle of nowhere again, this time on foot. ©Laponia Triathlon / Hans
Berggren Photography |
The run leg still is far from
easy. The main part follows Rallarstigen, a historical path deep in the forest.
Only about 30cm wide, just as deep, and full of rocks and roots, surrounded by
an unreal (yes, again…) Ronja Rövarsdotter atmosphere. No human around, no
sound. I stop and take a few photos so that they will believe me afterwards... Meanwhile
I have to walk for quite a while now, the achilles´ tendon takes its toll. Well,
however, there is currently no time cutoff that I could miss. Nevertheless, I
hurry up and settle for a 9-minute average, which in the end results in a run
split of well under 5 hours.
 |
| On the home
straight... |
Back
at Hellnerstadium, it finally took 12:49h to cross the finish line. As always,
I had sworn to never do any kind of sports again and to quit all this nonsense forever.
And as always, not a single word of that has
been true. My 13th Ironman, the second furthest northern one on this planet,
has been done!
We really suffered that night
(actually, the second transition took place at breakfast time - I crossed the
finish line at noon...), not necessarily more than ever before, but close to
the limit. But none of us performed like the volunteers of Gällivare Endurance,
the organizing local club, did. Those are the real heroes, they have manned aid
stations in the middle of the night out there in the laponian void, only warmed
by an open fire, or along the highway E45, in the spray of the passing trucks
and mobile homes.
We athletes only completed the
race, but the volunteers made it all possible for us. Nobody who dwelt in
self-pity out there on the bike or somewhere, lonely in the woods, should
forget that!
Thank you Gällivare Endurance for doing what you
do. Thanks to Laponia Triathlon and Hans Cedergren Photography for the kind permission
to use some of the wonderful race pictures. And thanks to Susanne for always
being there. I couldn't have done that alone…
