Arctic Circle Race -- , -- April 8 - 10, 2005 by Lindsay Gauld

Sometimes in a long tough event, you reach a point where you feel that you just can’t go on. You can’t continue to put your body through the pain that your efforts are causing. I lost count of how many times I reached that point in the 3-day Arctic Circle cross country ski race in Sisimiut Greenland.

It’s called the hardest cross country ski race in the world, and it lives up to it’s billing. In November of last year I did La Ruta de los Conquistadores in Costa Rica, which is known as the hardest mountain bike race on the planet. There’s a pattern that seems to be forming here. My wife Lynne has picked up on it, and now tells me that our yard work is the hardest on earth. I haven’t bit on that yet. However, these events are extremely challenging and at the same time very rewarding, so I keep looking for these kinds of challenges.

I first heard about the 9-year-old event several years ago, and I’ve had it on my dance card since then. I had to pause and think about it since this is a classic event, and I had only done skate races for at least 10 years. As I’ve gotten older (and slower) I find that I really enjoy the multi-day events, which test your mind and will as much as your speed, and this was the appeal of the ACR.

I’d originally planned on doing the Raid Ukatak adventure race this winter, but it was unexpectedly canceled. I found myself out of sorts with no goal in sight. At that time, a friend of ours from Calgary, Chris Algeo, came to stay with us and we talked about doing the ACR. My wife Lynne thought it sounded okay. As is my normal pattern, I didn’t leave time for second thoughts. I went and logged on the internet and entered the next day.

Chris had gone home, so I emailed him that I had entered and maybe we could co-ordinate our travel plans. It turns out that they had a family vacation to Italy, which made this year’s race impossible for him. I contacted Steve Scoles as he had talked about going in the past, but he also was unable to go this year. I was off on a solo adventure.

Now that I was committed, I had to come to grips that I hadn’t done a classic race in many years. I knew I could put in lots of time training for classic, but my plans came off the rails almost immediately when I fell walking on some ice, and badly dislocated my left shoulder. It took 8 hours at the Misericordia Urgent Care before it was popped back into place, and this caused extensive swelling and some nerve damage to the left arm. I found myself out skiing with my left arm in a sling, which didn’t make for any upper body work which is what I really needed.

Each year the course for the ACR is different, but it is always about 160 km over 3 days, with 2 nights sleeping out in tents. Last year, Norwegian skiing legend Bjorn Daelie did the race and only finished 7th. Although he is past his prime, this was still an eye opener in terms of the level of competition. In looking at the times of the fastest skiers, I estimated that it would take me between 14 and 16 hours, depending on the conditions. This meant about 5 hours per day, so I’d obviously have to build up my training distances very quickly.

After several weeks, my arm was slowly coming around. I could use it while skiing, but it would get tired and sore after time, and I would have to let it hang and ski with one pole. I’d do this for 10 minutes, and then use the arm again and gradually extend its use.

It’s tough to find a long circuit near the city groomed for classic. I found myself doing multiple laps at Windsor Park as well as Beaudry Park. For a longer loop, I’d venture out to Birds Hill. All of these venue lack hills and I understood the course in Greenland was very hilly, so I went several times to Grand Beach and also went out to the Bittersweet trails to get in more training on hills.

One of the intriguing parts of the Arctic Circle Race is the camping out at night after the first and second days. They supply the tents but you're responsible for your own sleeping gear and food, which you have to prepare yourself. I really liked this element, but it definitely meant a lot of planning would have to go into my gear.

I had the necessary sleeping bags (they had to be good to –30º, and yes they checked very closely) from my Ukatak gear. They transported your bag to the camp, and it couldn’t weigh more than 15 kg (33 lbs). With food, waxing supplies, race clothing for 3 days and all types of possible conditions, it was certain that I wouldn’t have a different wardrobe for dining every evening.

The web site said that there was a drying tent for your clothes, a waxing tent, as well as a cooking and eating tent. My experience at the 7-day Trans Rockies Challenge bike race led me to expect that I would need a complete set of race clothes for each day of the race. This meant more gear, but I didn’t fancy putting on damp gear to start a 5-hour ski race. On this point, I was wrong and the drying tent was very effective with plenty of heat and long rods and hangers for your clothes and boots. As for food, the web site said that they provided boiling water as well as tea and coffee. They also had pots and pans as part of our tent kit. I took food which only needed boiling water added, as I wasn’t sure whether we had cooking facilities or if I would have the energy to cook after racing 5 or 6 hours. Katrina at Wilderness Supply pointed me towards her favorite freeze-dried meals, and I also had noodle soups. For breakfast, I took instant oatmeal. I ate fine, but it turns out that I could have expanded my menu as they supplied each tent with a Trangia stove and nested pots. Some of the experienced ACR competitors ate quite lavishly, and I even saw several steaks being grilled, though that wouldn’t be my preferred race food. If (read when) I go back, I will enhance my food choices.

As part of the entry, you receive a round trip flight from Copenhagen to Greenland, as Greenland is a protectorate of Denmark. First Air used to fly from Ottawa to Iqaluit and then to in Greenland, but that is no longer an available option.

The flight from Copenhagen was on April 5th, so I flew on the 3rd to Toronto, and then to London on Air Canada. I then had an 8-hour layover in London before I caught a British Air flight to Copenhagen. I was dreading that part, but it turned out to be a blessing. My flight into Toronto had been delayed which made for a tight connection for the flight to London. When I arrived, I was dismayed to find that I had no luggage. Fortunately, the long layover allowed it to catch up to me before my flight to Denmark.

I arrived in Copenhagen after 20 hours of travel, so my hotel near the was most welcome. I had a quick meal and then tried to sleep off my jet lag. The next morning, I took the shuttle to the airport and met my first fellow ACR competitor. Peter Bachmann is a 56-year-old (same as me) Swiss skier who had done the race 2 years ago. When I meet Europeans I often feel inadequate, as most of them speak passable English while I’m decidedly unilingual. Peter could make himself understood in English, and we swapped war stories and quickly became friends.

We flew on a large Airbus, and I found myself trying to pick out the skiers among the passengers. All international flights to Greenland fly into Kangerlussuaq, which is a former US air base from WW II. From there it is necessary to switch to smaller Dash 7 planes to land at numerous other communities. There is virtually no highway system in Greenland. Since virtually all of the settlements are on the coast, people travel either by plane to some of the larger centers, or by boats which travel along the coast.

Sisimiut is the 2nd largest community in Greenland at about 5300 people. It is located 70 kms north of the Arctic Circle (hence the race name), and is the most northerly port in Greenland to remain open throughout the winter due to the influence of the Gulfstream. The primary industry is fishing, and there is a large fish processing plant, which is apparently one of the most modern in the world.

Upon arriving at the Sisimiut airport it turned out that there were about 35 ACR competitors on the flight. I heard some North American English being spoken, and met 3 guys from Boulder Colorado as well as 3 skiers from Whitehorse in the Yukon. Lena and Sara Nielson were a mother and daughter combo, and Craig Beatty was a Yukoner as well. I quickly asked if they knew Dan Reimer of Pumpkin Creek fame, and it turns out that our Dan has made quite an impression up there and they all knew him well.

I had opted for the bed and breakfast option, and was driven to the home of Rosa Heilmann and her son Jumak. I thought it would be fun to stay with some local people, and that proved to be the case. They were extremely friendly hosts, although they spoke almost no English. Needless to say, I knew no Greenlandic.

Having arrived on the 5th, we had 2 days until the race. I still needed to catch up on some sleep, but it helped that we were now only 3 time zones east of Winnipeg, as compared to the 7 in Denmark. I was close to the race start and went for a 1 1/2 hour ski on the 6th. The track was absolutely perfect, and it was a chance to loosen up and check out the waxing for what were proving to be very mild conditions.

The web site had repeatedly stressed that the snow was almost always cold and dry, and here it was straight klister conditions with a temperature of +3C. I tried Rode Nera Klister, which has a pretty wide range, and covered it with Swix Blue Extra hard wax to prevent icing. It was okay, but I decided to go with Start Grip Tape as a base layer with a fine coat of Nera if the conditions stayed the same. I tried this on a short ski on the 7th and it seemed to give me good grip. With lots of climbing on the 1st day, I was willing to give up a little glide to have sufficient grip.

That afternoon, there was a racer’s procession through the town to the local church where there was a ceremony in honour of the race. This is tradition, and although I’m not a church kind of guy, it was very nice.

After that, there was a racer’s meeting where we got our last minute instructions and our race numbers. We also all received an emergency kit, which included a bivy sac, a space blanket, and a whistle. They stressed that our race packs must contain a list of safety gear, and had to weigh at least 5 kilos. They took a bivy sac and space blanket out, and showed us how to hunker down in case of a whiteout on the course. The other item stressed was that our luggage to be transported couldn’t weigh over 15 kilos. With these thoughts, I headed back to Rosa’s for dinner, and last minute packing and ski prep.

I was having one rather worrisome problem in that I’d had serious stomach cramping and diarrhea for at least all of that day. I didn’t feel too bad, but I knew this could lead to dehydration, which would be problematic with a 160 km ski race in my immediate future. I tried to take in lots of fluids, but that only seemed to accelerate the problem. Oh well, I could only hope for the best.

Day 1 -- 56.6 Km

I awoke to face two problems. I was still somewhat cramped up in the stomach and staying close to the washroom. If this was a local race, I would definitely give it a pass, but that was not a choice after traveling so far. The other issue was that some fresh snow had fallen overnight, which made it necessary to strip off a bit of the klister and bury it with hard wax. I used my trusty Swix Blue Extra.

When I arrived at the starting area, I found that they had re-groomed during the night, and the track looked great. We all had to weigh-in our packs as we entered the starting shoot, and we were of at 10 AM sharp. We started with a short 1 km loop, after which we came by the start and had a short climb and steep downhill with a sharp turn at the bottom to give the local spectators some thrills and spills. We then had a 7.5 km loop with another return to the start and the same downhill.

Because it’s so open, you can race and spectate at the same time. I could see that the top two skiers from Greenland, Martin Moller and Oystein Slettemark (both former winners of the race), as well as Swedish stars Anders Sodergren and Oskar Svand had immediately shot ahead. I was skiing with Craig Beatty and Sara Neilsen from Whitehorse, but felt I was going a bit too hard, and backed off and grabbed a drink at the end of the 7.5 km loop. I was worried about cramping and thought that I'd need all the fluids I could take in.

We now headed inland, and I settled in for the long day ahead. I could only marvel at the beauty of the scenery as each stretch brought another postcard type of view. My wax was a little slippery, but it was fairly fast and I double polled a lot. This first 20 km was gentle terrain, but there were lots of monster hills to come, so I was saving the legs.

In spite of my caution, I was already cramping in both the legs and arms before the next checkpoint at 19.3 km. This was scary as we’d done the easiest part of the day with all the tough stuff still to come. We all had to carry our own cups for the checkpoints to minimize waste, and I had two large cups of Gatorade and hoped for the best.

On the next leg we did some long steep climbs. As we were heading inland, the snow got a bit colder and drier. This meant that I had better grip, but it also meant that I (and many others) was getting large clumps of snow building up on my base on the climbs. This was a bit of a problem on the flats and downhills, though it came off quite well for me. Although we were going mostly up, there were some screaming fast downhills where I was barely hanging on.

After a little over 4 hours, I reached the camp area. This sounds like a good thing, but from there we had to do a 17 km loop called the Labyrinth which had the most severe terrain of the day and in steadily worsening weather. One of the volunteers at the checkpoint told me that it would take 2 hours.

By now it was snowing and blowing, although the temperature was still mild. We had been told that if we reached a course marker and couldn’t see the next one, we shouldn't carry on. The markers were no more than 75 meters apart, and there were many stretches where I could barely see the next one and not much further.

By now I was cramping in my legs, triceps, and even in my stomach muscles from double poling, I couldn’t do a long diagonal stride, couldn’t double pole for long, and found myself reduced to doing a somewhat elongated shuffle. Fortunately my cramping meant that I hadn’t been able to push very hard, so I still had reasonable energy stores. I did this quick little shuffle and actually passed several skiers who had obviously hit the wall.

I was trying to beat 6 hours in a little contest with myself to do the last loop in less than the 2 hours she had said it would take me. When I finally reached the sign saying 1 km to the camp, it was looking good as I had over 7 minutes left. However, by now there was no hint of a track and the limited visibility made the downhills a total leap of faith. On the second last downhill I fell, and when I tried to get up my leg cramped badly. After trying several ways, I was finally able to right myself. On the last downhill swooping down to the camp, I got off in the deep snow off the track and again took a tumble. At least this time I’d now figured out how to right myself without seizing up totally, and I dragged my humbled self over the finish line. I finished in 36th place out of 104 total entrants, but I was several seconds over the 6-hour mark. To put this in perspective, winner Anders Sodergren of the Swedish Olympic team finished in 3 hours and 8 minutes, while the last two finishers came in after 10 hours and 11 minutes.

At the finish line, the volunteers were immediately there to help and took my equipment bag into the changing and drying tent for me. This was a long heated structure with a wooden floor. I had a real challenge changing with all the cramps, but I finally managed. We were all allowed 5 hangers for our wet race clothes, and there were long pipes along the roof from which to hang them. I had been worried that we’d never be able to dry our clothes, but this was not the case.

From there it was only a few steps to the mess tent. I needed to immediately get some fluids and nourishment in my depleted body. I had noodle soup and a freeze-dried ravioli dinner, and it went down well. I hadn’t understood that they supplied Trangia stoves and fuel, so all my food only needed to add boiling water. We all tended to linger in the mess tent long after we had eaten, as it was warm and comfortable. This was fun as it made for a friendly social atmosphere.

When I finally wandered over to my tent, I met Fabian Birbaum , a 21 year old Swiss student who was doing the race for the 2nd time. He is a very fast skier who’d come in 12th. Our sleeping bags and mattresses had been placed in the brand new North Face tents so I spread mine out and climbed in and rested for a while. I still needed to wax my skis and eat another meal but the rest was welcome and the fluids and food seemed to have caused my cramps to abate.

They had a waxing tent with a generator, irons, and benches. I smoothed my grip tape with the iron, and applied a number of layers of the trusty Blue Extra, as it had been fine at this higher inland location. I was lazy and left the glider alone. I then went back to eat a second meal and joined Peter Bachman and Fabian. He is the same age as me, and had come in 30 minutes ahead of me. We were both a long way behind the two leaders (both from Greenland) in our group, with a strong Norwegian in 3rd place. That was of little concern to me as I was just happy to have survived a difficult day.

Day 2 -- 44.1 Km

I slept fairly well although I still had cramping issues in my stomach and had to get up and go out to the cold washroom in the dead of night. Not pleasant but very necessary. My muscle cramps were gone and I felt pretty good. The cramping forced me to go pretty easily so I really hadn’t pushed myself too hard.

This was a shorter day, but it had three long climbs and two brutal downhills. We started with a 7 km loop out-and-back by the camp. This was designed to spread the group out. From the camp we climbed up gradually for about 3 km, at which point we were rewarded with a spectacular view of a frozen fiord 550 meters below.

The course plunged down dramatically with alternating steep pitches and slightly flatter sections. I tried to keep my right ski in the track and snowplow with the left leg. It continued down for a long way and my left leg was shaking with fatigue, so I had to get out of the track into a complete snowplow. I could see way down below that some pretty good skiers were actually walking down which didn’t fill me with confidence. I found that I had to make it around the corners, as it was icy enough that I was unable to stop. Nevertheless, I made it down unscathed, although my legs were burning from the effort.

The fiord has a tide of 4 meters even in the winter. They had equipment to make a snow bridge out onto the ice and off again at the other end after we’d skied about 4 km. I caught up to my friend Peter, and we skied together till the next checkpoint. I got a quick drink and filled my bottle, and carried on while he lingered a little longer.

What followed was a beautiful 5 km ski up a gradual rise to a pass up ahead. My wax was quite good, and I passed 4 or 5 skiers on this stretch. The last km to the pass was very steep and I herringboned my way up, only to be passed easily by a guy who’d taken off his skis and was walking. I immediately did the same. This day was out-and-back, and while I was climbing, the four leaders came blasting by on their way down. They were going scary fast and looked to be almost out of control, but they all made it.

At the top was a spectacular view of another fiord about 500 meters below. We were looking south and this one had open water. The sky was bright and clear, and I stopped at the top to quickly snap some pictures. What followed was another rocket fast descent to a checkpoint right down by the water’s edge.

After filling up, I started the long climb up. This side was totally exposed to the sun and the track was quite glazed, so for long stretches it was quicker to carry the skis and walk. I took several more pictures on the way up as I wanted to remember this glorious day.

The stretch back down and across the fiord went well, and I reached the bottom of that first long descent still feeling good. It had been extremely steep on the way down and proved to be a long grunt of a climb going back. I again took pictures looking back at the fiord, partly as an excuse to have a quick break. As with the earlier climb, it was quicker to carry the skis. The purist in me wanted to leave the skis on, but the pragmatist said to opt for this less than classic technique. I’m not sure about the actual distance climbed, but it took 45 minutes. From there it was a fast slightly downhill 3 km stretch to the finish.

I arrived in 4 hours and 17 minutes and came 30th, which was a nice improvement. I came in 15 minutes in front of Peter, so I now trailed him by 15 minutes overall. Anders Sodergren had won again in an astounding 2 hours and 26 minutes. I was happy with my ski, and the glorious weather and magnificent scenery made this one of the most special days of my athletic career spanning over 40 years. It was truly magic.

The shorter day meant more time in camp, and the mild weather made it very pleasant. After changing and eating, I waxed my skis. I put on another layer of glider as my better day gave me hopes of overtaking Peter on the last day. I had kept the Start backing tape and covered the grip area with it while putting on and scraping the glider. The Start Grip Tape is extremely durable, and was still holding fast though it had worn off the inside edges due to my frantic snowplowing on the downhills. I ironed it smooth to cover the whole ski width as my binder, and put on more layers of my trusty Blue Extra. If necessary I could alter that in the morning.

In the late afternoon, there was a party at the camp with some local singers providing the entertainment. They also had a wide variety of local seafood to eat. I would have loved to try some, but I gotten through the day with no more stomach cramping and didn’t want to take any chances. With the longer day in camp, it was possible to meet more of the other competitors, which was great. The atmosphere was very friendly as we all had a lot of mutual respect and admiration for our fellow competitors.

Day 3 -- 59.6 Km

The idea of doing 59.6 hilly kilometers would have seemed utterly fanciful to me at the start of this year, even if I hadn’t had 2 long prior days of skiing. Now, I felt good and ready to go.

We started by doing the 17 km labyrinth which ended the first day only in the reverse direction. It was several degrees colder (-7º), and the snow was drier. My wax was good, and I resolved to push it a little harder. I was with my friend Peter about 4 km after the start, and went on past him on a long uphill. I was skiing with a group of skiers I hadn’t been with on the first two days, which was encouraging and yet worrisome at the same time. However, I felt comfortable and told myself I would drop back if the pace proved to be too much.

After the 17 km, I came through in 1 hour and 20 minutes, which was much faster than the first day even though this was hillier than that day’s start. We then headed up a long climb to the highest point on the course at 700 meters. I had fallen back a bit by taking the time to have 2 full cups of Gatorade at the checkpoint, but I found myself holding the group ahead at a constant distance on the climb. It was alternately long grades followed by steep herringbone pitches. My wax was good and I tried to diagonal further up the hills than the guys in front of me. It’s odd how we play these little games with ourselves to help us deal with the efforts we’re imposing on our bodies.

At the top, we could again see a beautiful fiord down below. By this time I had come to understand that seeing a fiord meant that I had a fast downhill in my immediate future followed by a long climb back up. On this one, the two tracks were close together so it was fun to watch some of the front-runners climbing up.

At the fiord there was an aid station, and I ate and drank and headed up the last really long climb. On this one the grade was reasonable and I was able to diagonal for most of the way. I caught up with two of the guys ahead at the top, but chose to back off slightly at the start of another fast downhill section. With the glazed conditions and the consequent speed, I didn’t want to be too close on somebody’s tail, as there would be no time to react if they went down.

The course was now tending down towards the coast. To give you some insight into how a long event like this changes your perspective, when I reached the next checkpoint with 20 km to go, I felt like I was almost there. I had passed two more skiers on the last uphill before the checkpoint and I was feeling the best I’d felt in the whole race.

It was so open that on some long stretches I could see three or four skiers ahead of me in the distance and this was a carrot drawing me on. The last aid station came with 11.8 km to go. I still had a full bottle, but I stopped ever so briefly for some help. I had just had some of my protein bar and couldn’t get the wrapper back in my pack. They are very proud of their almost total lack of pollution, and throwing garbage on the trail could rightly lead to disqualification. They thanked me, and I carried on. At the checkpoint I passed two young skiers who had stopped for a drink. After about 1 km, they re-passed me and I tried to stay with them. Unfortunately, with their young bodies against my old one, it was an uneven contest and I had to gradually give ground. I found out at the banquet that the one boy was only 16. I had noticed at the La Ruta de los Conquistadores MTB race in Costa Rica that there was no restriction on youth taking part, and that was also the case at the ACR. This was the 3rd time that he had done the race. I sometimes think that we are too cautious with our young athletes in terms of the distances we allow them to race.

It’s funny how you can go from the hunter to the hunted in a very short time in a race situation. Suddenly, I was no longer trying to catch them and I found myself looking back to see if anyone was pursuing me. Sure enough, there was another skier gradually pulling me back, and he pulled even with me with about 3 km to go. I had pushed hard on this day and now I was just trying to hang on till the finish without the wheels completely falling off. He slowly inched ahead and I was powerless to hang on.

This meant that I had the opportunity to finish all on my own, and it was very exciting as there was a large crowd of spectators spread along the course for the last kilometer and right into the finish. It was fun to finish amid the appreciative cheers of the crowd and have them announce that you were from Canada. The people were wonderful and treated all of us skiers like heroes. It felt a little strange, but good for one’s ego.

I had my best day and was 23rd in 4 hours and 51 minutes, as compared to Anders and Osker in 3 hours and 12 minutes. I now waited for my friend Peter, and he came in 19 minutes after me, which put me ahead of him by 4 minutes after 3 days and 160 kms. We hugged and congratulated each other. It’s truly a shared experience and it felt wonderful to be part of it.

In the course of the three days, I had come to know the two guys who were at the very back of the pack, Jesper Kragh and Gregers Reinman. They’re both Danish, but Jesper is an engineer who has been living in Malaysia for several years. They arranged to meet at a conference on energy efficient buildings, which was starting in Greenland’s capital on the Monday after the race.

Jesper hadn’t really skied for 15 years, and all of his training was on roller skis in the heat of Malaysia. They had taken over 10 hours on Day 1, and slightly under 8 hours on the second day. I wanted to watch them finish, but I had plenty of time to go back to Rosa’s, shower, get into some warm dry clothes, have a snack, and wander back to the finish. When I asked an official, he said they had 8 km to go. That doesn’t sound like much, but at the pace they were going it proved to be well over an hour. I spent the time talking with Stefan & Hannah, a couple from Germany who also wanted to see them arrive. This is a tradition, and the crowds of locals actually grew in anticipation of their arrival.

Finally they appeared in the distance. As they approached the finish, a caravan of all the race officials and marshals on snowmobiles as well as the two large grooming machines came behind them. Many of the volunteers in their full length red Helly Hansen suits were running the last several hundred meters behind them. They crossed the finish together to thunderous applause as the PA played We are the Champions. In a gesture that I thought was really neat, Anders and Osker from Sweden were there to meet them with open arms. They literally lifted them onto their shoulders for the people to get pictures. In this race the regular skiers truly get to meet the stars. Perhaps it’s more correct to say that the ordinary skiers are the stars.

At the banquet the next evening, it was a real party atmosphere. The volunteers were particularly boisterous and it was great fun. I sat with Craig, Lena and Sarah, and it was great to see Sarah get her 3rd place overall award. Lena won the 50+ women’s category, so Canada was well represented. When Oskar Svand received his 2nd place award, he took several moments to thank all of the volunteers and the organizers. In a thought that totally mirrored mine, he said that the incredible second day had been one of the highlights of his life. I totally agree, but I think I could expand that to include the whole wonderful experience.

As a short postscript, I want to mention the insidious way that you get sucked in further and further once you start doing these long distance events. With all the time in the mess tent, we had lots of time to talk about other races we have done, and several people, including my friend Peter, mentioned a race called the Border to Border. This is a 7-day 400 km classic ski race across the northern part of Finland. It starts on the Russian border and ends at the Swedish border. Sounds like fun doesn't it. I'm getting my shoulder operated on December 21st, so it won't be this year, but it's nice to have something to look forward to in the future.