This week, coinciding  with the first Scottish snowfall of the season, sees me gearing up and getting ready to apply for the Arrowhead 135 Ultra, a 135 mile race across Northern Minnesota in the Good Ol’ US of A,  in the middle of winter. There are a range of disciplines: bike (bugger that), ski (can’t) or run (guess it’ll have to be that then) to choose from. The website states that the race features arguably many of the best winter ultra-athletes in the world (and potentially me) and with temperatures regularly dipping down to the minus 30-40C this’ll have a similar feel to the Yukon Arctic Ultra that myself and Garry took part in earlier this year.

I’ll be running alone this year as Garry can’t make it due to other commitments. Racing in these sub-zero temperatures bizarrely suits me as it becomes less of an endurance test, which it still definitely is, and more an issue of admin and logistics. One of the great challenges that face racers is the management of the cold and ensuring that you are proficient in everything you do from navigation to fire-building to managing your sleep-system when you’re knackered.

Robert, Diane, Kevin and Gary (from the Yukon Arctic Ultra 2011) talk about what every athlete fears; frostbite.

I almost got it badly wrong in Yukon when I had a pretty severe case of frost nip which affected my left hand. As an individual, it would have been pretty difficult to recover from that but racing as a team reduces the implications of such a mishap and gives you a load of confidence. Late on during the Yukon Arctic Ultra, we caught the German Skins-sponsored-athlete Denis Wischniewski. He later told us that whilst he felt pretty demoralised to see us ‘moving like a train’ it also felt pretty good to see another human (he hadn’t seen another soul since the previous checkpoint, eight hours before).

It’s during those periods of isolation and exhaustion that mistakes are made. I’m going to have to work hard on my fitness pre-race, take on board the lessons learned from the YAU 2011 and keep my gloves on at all times!