We are just back from our first and last practise run on the ice and I am in shock.
The sheer enormity of this race has suddenly hit me and I am feeling incredibly nervous.
The general gist of the situation is:
1. Any race that takes more than five minutes to get dressed for is wrong. Today I went out in running shorts, thermal leggings, running leggings, thermal under shirt, thermal compression top, long sleeve t-shirt, running jacket, silk gloves with thermal gloves over the top and a balaclava and full goggles. I looked like a blimp and far from a runner...
2. Yaktraks are fantastic but tend to ruin hotel floors. This perhaps explains why the doorman of the hotel has a permanently worried look at the moment and why I ended up skidding across the lobby this morning.
3. At minus cold (or whatever it is today) the air freezes and glitters like diamonds. This is in no way to be considered romantic and is in fact terrifying. For the first few minutes, presumably whilst your goggles are equalising temperature, this can lead to a sudden loss of perspective which leads to a walking into things, like doors.
4. Running on snow and ice is harder than you could imagine. The couple of miles we did today felt like a lot more as each step needs to be considered as you try to pick your way along crevices and over moraines.
5. Lake Baikal is an immense sea of ice that stretches from here to infinity. Tomorrow we will be bussed to the other side, slapped on the arse, given a shot of vodka and then encouraged to run for about 6 hours across its frozen wastes. There is no way that I can process this as when you stand on the ice visibility is so far as to be meaningless
6. The first few minutes of the run feel like your innards are being slowly vitrified and any visible skin soon becomes numb. This is terrifying but after a few minutes of deep breathing and movement the body adjusts and things return to normal. It is these first few minutes that concern me the most. As soon as you stop running coldness sets in and almost knocks the wind out of you. Carl Jung may have once famously said, ‘cold or not…God is present...’ but after a few miles today I had my own doubts
7. We need to fuel up for a six hour run tomorrow. The food in the hotel is ok but there isn’t the exact mix of nutrition that we would choose ourselves. We will head out tomorrow on a breakfast of pancakes and frozen berries and then keep going by sucking on frozen electrolyte gels.
8. I am drawing down into myself. I can feel the quietness slowly filling my mind and every thought and feeling slowly making way for ones about the race. I am becoming hyper focused which I am not sure is a good thing. Out on the lake today it felt like I was a character from a Murakami novel (perhaps, Hard Boiled Wonderland….) and I had wondered into a place for dreams. Maybe tomorrow, at thirteen miles, we will see a sign etched into the ice which reads: this place for solitude….or perhaps I will have to etch it myself.
9. Smilla may well have once said, 'The only thing that makes me truly happy is mathematics. Snow, ice, and numbers....' but I suspect that she also forgot to mention the joys of compression tops, the thought of as much beer as you can drink after the race and the fact that this is a one off experience...she may well have had a feeling for snow but I have a feeling for the lack of it
Marathon tshirt
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