I’d set out north for Lapland to do a 100 mile trail running race through the Pallas-Ylläs National Park. While I have gone further in multi-stage races, this would be my first attempt at covering this distance non-stop. Even though I had been able to train consistently for this race, I’d only been able to do so for 6 months since I’d made the decision to go. So, to save you the suspense, I ended up with a DNF after 42 miles due to a series of events that sealed my fate; and while I would obviously have loved to have made it to the finish line, regardless, I am thankful for the much needed reality check and lesson in humility that this experience afforded me.
So, what happened? Well, I managed to sprain my ankle rather badly after just 16 miles, which instantly forced me to re-evaluate my race strategy. Any kind of running was now certainly out of the question. I could still manage to walk, but the rough terrain made it hard to even do that at a pace that would get me to the first checkpoint at Pallas before the cut-off time. Even though I was participating in a race, my primary goal was to experience the magic of the midnight sign over the fells, valleys and lakes of this amazing place, and so I decided to proceed and just see what would happen. As things went, I ended up spraining that very same ankle two more times over the next 10 or so miles, but luckily catching it just in time on both occasions to prevent any further serious damage.
Despite being forced to drop below my planned race pacing schedule, I calculated that I might still have a chance to make the first cut-off time at the 42 mile mark, and I could then make a decision as to whether I could, or even should, proceed. However, fate had another plan for me, which had already been sealed an hour before the race start. The race had been due to kick off at 1pm, but as our bus had broken down on the way to the start, this ended up forcing a one hour delay. The combined butterfly effect from this and my ankle injury created a situation where I ended up spending two extra hours walking over the exposed elevated landscape after midnight with the ambient temperature falling fast, particularly as the wind blowing across the tops had picked up quite a bit. As a consequence, I felt my body rapidly starting to shut down.
By the time I’d reached the Pallas aid station, I was on the verge of hypothermia, despite the small miracle of actually making it there before the cut-off. However, with only just 25 minutes remaining, I had no hope of warming myself up fast enough to make it safe for me to proceed. I basically had no choice at this point, other than to accept the reality of the situation, and so my journey simply fizzled out right then and there. Once I’d warmed up again over the next hour or so, I was ready to jump on the bus back to the race base in Äkäslompolo … and, unfortunately, with still relatively fresh legs. That certainly gave me a strong dose of ‘what could have been’, but there was no point entertaining those thoughts any further, as it would have changed absolutely nothing.
In retrospect, now that I’m back home, it can be very easy for me to make excuses for my ‘failure’, but I’ve simply chosen not to see it that way. In the end, with this being my first race in over 12 years, and with only 6 months of specific race preparation, it was always going to be a tall order to make it to the finish, even if everything had gone according to plan. So, I will just take this experience as a valuable status check of both my physical and mental fortitude, and be grateful that I still had the privilege to experience the magic of the midnight sun in Lapland while roaming over new terrains.
In a strange way, I’ve actually now become even hungrier to test and go beyond my limits. However, perhaps the best way for me to do that is not via contrived and arbitrary time-limited events, no matter how interesting and amazing they otherwise might be. Maybe the race I need to run is the one within, where I proceed at exactly the right pace that my soul will have set for me at any given moment, while being fully in tune with the landscape that I’m navigating over. The quote by Steven Wright, “Everywhere is within walking distance, if you have the time.”, could well now become my mantra going forward. What then remains for me to do, is to simply free up more time for moving forward along my chosen path, and for however long that may take. In that regard, please allow me to already introduce to you my new travel companion Matilda a Segunda or Matilda the Second.
Thank you, and be blessed,
Jyri
run for your life 