Lifestyle and Leisure
Freezer geezer
Ever wondered what facing up to a 515-kilometre race in the Yukon Territory in February feels like? Briton Carlyle Jenkins, part of the charity-fundraising four-man Team Helmut, does.
Preparation
From the moment Simon Bayliff asked me to join Team Helmut on sunny May morning in London 2008 I knew my life would change. I was deeply honoured to be asked to join the team consisting of Simon, Andy Pocock and Jules Bartlett. My impression of them had been and remains: a group of remarkable individuals who shared deep passion for challenging themselves in a serious and fun way.
I was deeply concerned about the next challenge that the team had set. My immediate reaction to Simon informing me that it was the Yukon Arctic Ultra was horror. Horror at the distance, horror at the temperature and horror at the timing. Late February is the best time to go skiing! There was no turning back though, Simon told me that fundraising would be directed towards Breast Cancer Care, as Janice his Mum, who had supported us through the 100km Trailwalker, had just beaten breast cancer with their help.
After the meeting I cursed and congratulated myself.
Cursed myself for consciously setting in my mind the challenge to do something big. I had set out about a year before to find out if I had what I thought I had. I guess we all harbour thoughts of invincibility. I could do this or that. As I reached my early 30s in mind I had not actually done anything that truly tested that theory. So when the opportunity to join three experienced endurance athletes in the most ambitious race they had ever set themselves presented itself I cursed myself. This was going to be hard.
I also congratulated myself. Here it was: The opportunity to really see if I could do it. To see if I could push myself to the limit, where ever that is. To see what I was made of.
From May to August I revelled in telling everyone about the race using my explanation for the challenges we faced to become familiar with my internal doubt and personal demons about doing it.
I then read a small piece by an anonymous author about life, the gist being ' enjoy the journey, not the destination'.
So I forced myself to stay focused on the now. What could I achieve everyday, every week that would contribute to learning, adapting and training my body and mind to be able to walk for 300 miles in six days at -30C.
The physical training began in earnest late August and by early September we were regularly doing two tyre sessions in Richmond park, walking the north downs for 16 hours and every other spare moment lifting weights and strengthening my core.
By December the enjoyment had turned to mild annoyance. Every moment was about the Yukon. The bloody Yukon.
Day 0 (14 February 2009)
We are sitting in the athlete's meeting being briefed by Robert Pollhammer about the logistics of the race, trail conditions, weather expected, overflow, etcetera.
I look around the room and see very few people I would usually spend time with - or even share a beer with. The vast majority of the athletes are loners, seeking the solitude of endurance racing. So right off the bat I know this is going to test me. We had prepared for this meticulously, but you can't prepare completely for something that goes totally against your grain.
I love people, being around them, sharing experiences. I look at my team-mates with mixed emotions. I thank god I am sharing this with them. I also remember it was they that damn well invited me to join them so, right at this moment, they are a bunch of w*****s! The team vibe is very much the same - we are different to everyone else, and this also give us strength. But we don't know what we don't know so we live in ignorance.
Day 1
Jules and I are up early making last-minute preparation to kit, drop bags, and generally faffing about with small things. I speak with my mum and dad briefly and try and hide my fear. I can't quite explain what the fear is of. I think its being on my own, of falling behind the boys and having to travel on my own. And I think I'm fearful of being bored.
Ten o'clock approaches quickly and we are down in the foyer with the other athletes, everyone checking each other kit out, going 'o you went with so and so for you thermos... I thought about that for my food but decided against it' - the usual masked cockfighting that happens when frightened people gather together. Beneath that, though, I also sense a real mutual respect for actually being here, for being willing to test yourself.
Somehow, we're late for the start - everyone else has left. We amble to the start down the snow-lined streets of Whitehorse, as the locals shake their heads. We know what they think. The day before everyone we met was confusing us with being part of the Yukon dog sled quest. "No, no, we are running it," we always replied. This was always met with "you fools!"
I see my cab driver from the day before and wave. All I get is a shake of the head and a very small smile.
Then we are at the start line. I feel ridiculous, totally out of my depth and keen to get this thing started so it be over with asap. They count us in and we are off. Sounds like we are running but we are walking slowly - apart from Enrico the freak 55-year-old Italian literally jogging away! I think 'that boy does not know what he is doing, we'll soon catch him'. But we didn't. No-one did.
The first day goes by fairly uneventfully. It's cold but not super cold. We finish the marathon in about the time we expected - 5.30ish. Once we stop we are informed that there is no mandatory four-hour stop - we can keep going as soon as we wish. This throws us a bit. Its also getting really cold as we mess around with kit, minor blister repairs, changes in socks, getting our food into us, all with little hand protection. I really start to feel the cold on my hands and want to get moving. We get barely luke warm water in our flasks and get going.
The next section was what we expected - from 6pm to whenever we feel we need to sleep. Slowly our head torches come on and the boredom sets in. Up until now the scenery had been enough to occupy my head space. We get into a rhythm with swapping leaders every hour. It's brilliant leading, you have to set the pace and mentally it's the strongest place to be. The worst is immediately after leading - at the back. It seems silly but you simply can't keep up. I start to curse whoever is leading for their pace. We knew this would happen but it does not make it any easier.
Three hours in to the second stint and everyone is looking pretty ragged and the call goes up to look for a suitable place to bivvie. Something we had not thought of was finding enough flat ground for four people to sleep on. Step off the trail and its up to our thighs and snow get everywhere. Suddenly we find a massive area perfect for us. The temperature's really dropped now - we found out later it was the coldest night: -30C. Getting into my bag was never easy - they were obviously designed for slender, shorter people. I never seem to have any room from my chest up. Suddenly the zip jams, slowly I reverse it... no movement. I pull again backwards, forward and back, gradually increasing the firmness, and suddenly the zip pulls off. F**k. There is an outside zip. I try that, gentle but firm… that pulls off. So I am super tired rapidly losing body heat, the temp approaching -30C and my zip has broken on the first night. I stop and take some deep breathes, and swear I hear Jules snoring already! What do I do? Head torch on, I inspect the zip. Firmly wedged into the down gusset. I get my Leatherman tool out I attempt to budge it. Nothing is moving. Again I inspect it, Its now frozen. F**k. Worst case scenario: Body heat at its lowest, on the coldest night, zip jammed at about my waist, what am I doing in the f***ing Yukon anyway! Suddenly I feel a sense of calm come over me. I say to myself: 'Right. Zip your down jacket up fully, put your mitts on and hold the bag closed. Sort it in the morning or at the next stop. What else could I do. I had already missed 20 minutes of crucial sleep. I think I slept an hour total, completely broken sleep unable to move when I cramped because all the warmer air would leak into the night.
Day 2
Then we are up again. I know my core is way too cold, I must get some heat into me. I reach for my flask at the bottom of my bag. The water is half frozen, what the...! The luke warm water we were given had frozen in the four hours since we left check point 1. With a bag leaking it never fully thawed, so the first thing my body feels after 12 hours walking and one hour of broken sleep is cold water. Not good. Right, get some food in, anything. Nuts, gels, granola. I am struggling because my hands are too cold. But I need to eat and everyone else is already ahead of me with packing. I not going to hold them up. I not going to be left behind. Then we are off.
I lead for the first hour, I have to because I am so cold, so I set a brutal pace, the snow is hard and we are moving fast. Then suddenly an hour is up and I am at the back. I hate the back, everyone hates the back. I fall off the back as we get into some climbs. Suddenly, I can't see their head torches. 'Get f**king going mate' I say to myself, but my body is saying 'no'. I keep on, reciting my mantras to myself over and over again: I can do this, I will do this. Another hour passes, they are waiting. I catch-up. they seem fine, but I am totally knackered. We have covered some ground and are getting into the coldest part of the night. I am already running on empty, everything I have to eat is frozen or super cold, taking more heat away from my core. The next seven hours are the hardest of my life. The eight words 'I can do this, I will do this' become the only thing in my mind. Dawn approaches and everyone is hurting. We have no real idea of how far we have to until the next checkpoint. For some reason our navigator – Simon, has not been looking at the map - a testament to how shocking the conditions are to your mind. The detail guy, the person who prides himself on knowing where he is and how far to go all the time, is out of character. We are really ragged now, but start passing other competitors bivvied up and that gives me some motivation, if it only lasts for ten minutes!
Its now fully light and my turn to lead again. I have no energy and the pace is slow, we are up and down over changing terrain. There's complaining from the back that the pace is too slow, they are cold. I need to move faster. I am looking for something in my body I have not accessed before, something I thought I had but had never really tested. I make this realisation slowly. When it dawns on me that this is it, now is the time to find it, I find something almost like finding a spare litre of water when dying of thirst in the desert, only this is totally internal. The next 30 minutes pass quickly. We can see we are next to a lake, and we also know the next check point is on a lake. We are close...
No! We are another six hours away. The next six hours I find really hard to remember, I know I was hallucinating and falling asleep often. The team has broken up. Simon way out in front, me, then Poey and Jules a short distance behind me. We get in to some more vertical sections.… f**k it.
Every tree shape my mind sees throws up a face from the past, a person I had not thought of in years, a polar bear, three little mice…..weird. I am having out-of-body experiences, watching my body from above, marvelling at the stupidity of the Yukon Arctic Ultra. Then I walk into Simon. He is in a bad way. Not making much sense and complaining of being super cold. Getting his down jacket and pants on. I notice I am pretty cold too. But it's 10am and the sun is glorious. We take some cold water on. I help Si with his bag, and Poey and Jules head off. We pass ten people waking up form their bivvies. Then they pass us. We must be there soon. Every half-fallen tree, and there lots of half fallen trees in the Yukon, is the checkpoint, my mind says - just make it to there. I get there and kick myself for falling for the hallucination. You just want to get there so badly, you make it up.
Then finally I see it and power (stagger) up the last hill and can't quite believe it. Poey looks terrible. Jules looks worse. He says he can't go on his foot/shin is ruined. I barley register it. I need warm water and food. The place is beautiful but strewn with sleeping athletes in their bags. I take on food, fix my bag, recharge my three thermos with 'hot' water and get two hours of kip. Upon waking I notice Sophie Collete is here, we shared a section of trial with her last night but she dropped off in the early hours of the morning. Jules has retired unable to continue. Sophie asks if she can join us for the next leg, so we are four again.
As we leave check point two I feel surprisingly good. Anything would be better than six hours of hallucinating. Its just gone 4.30pm and the temperature is 'balmy', light is really good and we making goodish time. There is not much talking just rotating the lead every hour. Rhythm is the key. Do anything to keep the rhythm. Its actually better not to stop for too long as you don't have time to notice how exhausted you are. We walk until about 11.30 and bivvie up. Hot food. A fire! Simon is keen to get a fire going, purely for morale. I don't argue, but it means scrambling around hip-deep snow for wood for about 20 minutes and I cant really be arsed, but do it anyway. Once the fire is up, so is the banter - it's probably the first time we share how we are really feeling. A crazy German passes and says he can't stop, because the fire looks so good, he would never get going again. He teases himself by taking a glove off and warming his hands, takes a photo, makes a joke. Not that funny - he is German, after all - then leaves. Suddenly the fire wood runs out and I am in my bag, fully zipped and cramping everywhere. It's better sleep but Poey yells out "Bogan time to get up" literally just after I close my eyes. It easier to get up this time, just. Our next check point is Braeburn, the 100-mile mark. Off we set about 3.30am. I'm thinking of burgers.
Cant remember the next four hours - they fly by. As the sun rises we are greeted by beautiful scenery, flat ground, trees and small hills either side of us. It's the same scenery we have had the whole way. I hate flat snow. I finish a lead and once again I'm at the dreaded back. This time, though, I can't keep up and that means I am always at the back, sometimes a full kilometre behind. I am in a bad mindset, boring and I'm feeling really sore everywhere, especially my chafing. It literally feels like I'm tearing the skin between my buttocks with every step. Finally, I catch up. The terrain is pretty flat, the going easy but it's warming up (-15C) so the trail is softening. As 9am approaches we are getting closer and seeing other competitors - all 100 milers. They will be finishing at Braeburn - why can't we!
Simon and Andy inform me that when they signed up for the race (prior to me joining the team) they were keen on the 100. Jules told them to 'man up, lets do the 300' Jules is not here now and we all would have gladly given ourselves a big pat on the back for completing the 100. I swear at the absent Jules.
The last three hours take forever, and time seems to freeze over the last five kilometres. Then on the final lake we bump into journalist Mark Gillete, his skidoo camera in hand snapping away at us. This feels really surreal, but it also means we are close to the checkpoint. Then, without hallucinating, it's there. I need a crap, but my arse is raw from chafing. It's the same problem for everyone and something that really messes with your head. Every step is agony until there is a mild sweat in your cheeks. Lovely.
I run through my jobs: toilet (have to use a portaloo - this is ridiculous) eat, drink, dry kit, change underwear, sleep. I awake to find all four of us strewn across two beds push together. Sophie, me, Andy and Simon. I wake because I can't stop my body cramping. I'm lying down ,but my body is going somewhere, or feels like it is. I also notice I have frostbite on the third and fourth fingers of both hands. My right fourth finger. its pretty bad - white and with no blood supply or feeling when squeezed. I get the first aid person to have a look. She says it mild but I have to really careful not to re freeze it again or I could be some serious trouble. I am not stopping, that's for sure, but I am also worried - what impact could this shave on my job. A part of my brain says 'you'll be right'.
We leave at dusk feeling refreshed and, most importantly really, we lubed up! I lead and within 30 minutes we have lost Simon and Poey. They took a wrong turn! The next seven hours are pretty uneventful, just more flat snow, head torches and the dreaded chafing. We are travelling on lot sof lakes now, which is pretty quick going. As we near 2am we near a big lake, and being tired don't want to spend two hours on lake, so bivvie up at what we think is the big lake. Its starts snowing, we melt water, try and heat the leftover cinnamon buns from Braeburn and then get some sleep.
Day 3
We wake two hours before dawn to learn that we are on the big lake. Good call! From here to Ken Dog Lake will take us until the end of the day. Nothing really to report apart from Poey's call to duty on a special mid-morning break, when Simon's chafing required third-party attention. This race is the dumbest thing I have ever done.
Day 4
The only thing I really remember from this day is a beautiful lunch in the sun and leading us over the last lake – five kilometres or so on the most brilliant starlit night. I turned my head torch off and was able to see the trail by starlight. Then after my eyes had adjusted, I could look up, and still see the trail in my peripheral vision. My view - the biggest, brightest sky, no universe, I have ever seen. The next 20 minutes I spent leading us across the lake, looking up completely swallowed up by the sky, totally absorbed by the universe. Then we are there.
We spend two hours eating, doing foot and butt care, sharing stories, then we are off again to Carmacks - the next drop bag point and two-thirds of the way there. It's the same as before: Lake, a bit of forest, another lake, forest. I am totally bored and want this thing done. It takes as long as it takes and then we arrive in Carmacks, really f**ked. Showers! Simon goes into shock in the shower shaking uncontrollably - his core temp fighting to rise. He is in the best place he can be so Andy and I leave him there and wait for his core temperature to increase. Its weird we did not panic, it was like 'yeah that would be right for what we just did'. The food they supply is meagre to say the least and our race doctor turns out to be a paramedic and not very confident at that. We go to bed for eight hours.
Day 5
It's been snowing – four inches downs so far. We had not taken our snow shoes because no snow was predicted. We are always trying to carry less, so no snow meant taking no snow shoes. Big mistake! We set off with Sophie and Mike, a friendly Vancouverite, and it's really slow. Si leads first, we are feeling good, like our bodies are adapting. But is really slow – something like two kilometres an hour: Not fast enough! Then I take over, and punch out the best hour I can, but it starts snowing again, heavily. We are into some serious vertical for walking on five-plus inches of snow. Our pace slows even more. It's pointless ,we will never finish this stage, let alone the race, at this pace. We have been done by the weather. I know this but we keep pressing on. Then we start chatting about it. We are done. We stop and hit help, build a fire and within 90 minutes the cavalry arrive: Six skidoos and the best part of the race so far - a race back to Carmacks at 90 kilometres an hour.
We're offered a time penalty and a restart at Mccabe. We take it. We finish the Mccabe to pelly Crossing leg but it does not feel right. If we finish this race, I will never feel like I actually did it. Upon waking from our bivvie I voice this concern and ask everyone else their thoughts. We all agree it would be pretty hollow. I don't see the point in continuing to thrash my body and decide I am finishing my race in Pelly. I am proud of what I have achieved and feel we were simply done by the weather. Sure, we could have pressed on and finished in nine days or so, but that means pushing our flight back, pushing my clients back - simply not an option. We gave it our best shot and I do not feel the need to go back. Maybe I will later, maybe I won't. Right now I need to get into the mountains to ski and get over my hate for flat snow.
Reflections
Its 12 days since we returned and I have not changed my mind - dumbest thing I ever signed up for. It's for people who love being on their own and hurting. That's not me. I vote the next challenge Team Helmut does involves sitting down, and motorised transport... A car rally of some sort. And absolutely no more f**king flat snow.
For further info: www.arcticultra.de/en.php