Night without darkness - Laponia Triathlon 2019, Gällivare, Swedish Lapland

"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…