Tundra Run
What’s the attraction of running in a desolate, Arctic tundra?
The only thing to chill Thierry Cohen’s ever-present grin has been the Arctic temperatures that froze his eye shut.
“How do you prepare for minus 30 degrees [Celsius]?” says the Club Member, who completed the North Pole Marathon on April 10. “You have no idea what it’s going to be like.”
After trudging for nearly eight hours on a sheet of ice floating a short helicopter ride away from the geographic North Pole, Cohen raised the green, white and red flag of his native Italy as he crossed the finish line.
“You have to just think above the pain,” says Cohen, 53. “You just go and you keep on going…and you just keep tackling it.”
Cohen, who hadn’t run a marathon in more than 12 years, learned about the race billed as the “world’s coolest marathon” from a seatmate on a business flight. As soon as the plane landed, Cohen registered for the race online.
With four months to prepare, he started to do sprint and interval workouts on the Fitness Center’s treadmills and completed long runs on the weekend.
He flew to the marathon starting point from a Norwegian hamlet where Cohen first experienced permanent sunlight. He landed on an 800-meter ice runway at Camp Barneo, a Russian base that operates three weeks out of the year.
“There was a horizon like I’ve never seen,” says Cohen, explaining how the sun never dipped below the horizon. “You can imagine that you are on top of the world.”
After settling into tents (with ice floors), the 55 racers were notified that weather conditions were ideal, and the marathon would start in 90 minutes. “I guess sleeping before a marathon is for wimps,” says Cohen with a laugh.
Under an 11pm sun, Cohen began his 13 laps around a 3.2-kilometer course. After following the runway, the runners headed into the frozen tundra.
He soon took off his fogged-up goggles. The wind stirred up tears, which turned to ice. He closed one eye, which clamped shut. By the second lap, the sweat around his midsection froze. He made eight pit stops at his tent to thaw out.
“The hardest was probably the terrain. …It gets soft, so you were running like on sand,” he says. “I was drained at 16 [kilometers], and I was thinking, ‘I’m not even halfway through.’ But you look around and you realize just how amazing this place is. You are just, like, ‘OK, this is it. I have another three or four hours ahead of me, and then this whole experience is gone.’”
As Cohen made his final lap, he spied the finish line across the flat terrain. A little after 6:30am, he and another grinning runner, from Turkey, crossed the line together.
“It was something I needed to do,” he says. “When you persevere in those tough times, when you know you can do it and you just keep going, at the end of it you are a different person.”
The Fitness Center’s personal trainers can offer advice on preparing for a race or endurance event.
Words: Nick Narigon
Image: Mark Conlon-North Pole Marathon
