True Northern Runners*
“It’s cold up north”
The meaning of that phrase took up a slightly different meaning for me on January 4. That was the date the Polar Night Half Marathon took place. Let me get this out of the way early on — it was 3pm. It was dark, don’t get me wrong, but it certainly wasn’t night as I knew it. The race takes it’s name from the period of the year it is held, during which night time lasts for over 24 hours. Pretty dark, then. The temperature plummeted to a chilly -12 (‘feels like -18', screw you, Yahoo weather). But you know, luckily it was only -2 at the start of the race.
So let me pull it back a moment. Honestly, I don’t really remember when about the idea came about for me to suggest it out loud that this sounded like an appealing race… but little did I know someone would actually agree with me. And then suggest we actually do it.
You see the other thing appealing about this race, outside of the cold… was that it took place in the Arctic circle. A lot more northern than Manchester. Not only that, but the general area is known for a particularly good view of the northern lights. So don’t get me wrong, this was appealing. What I didn’t really know is just how much I would love the whole experience.
The Laydown.
Packing for this race was no joke. Layering became an art. Trialing runs whilst being far too warm for North London to work out just what I wanted to wear became basically my other day job. It paid off, mind. Shout out to Nike, Adidas and Uniqlo (heat-teach is the shit, trust me) for actually having suitable gear for me to run in.
With a couple of hours before the race the usual things set in. Ooh. Is that a calf strain? Damn. Knee sort of hurts. Ouch. Maybe I need some more kit? Let’s check the shop. So we did. The entire running community of northern Europe appears to be wearing spikes. I mean I had spikes, I just wasn’t at all keen on wearing them. These shoes I bought promised 18 times the grip of my previous trainers or something ridiculous like that. Marketting, right?
Then I almost stacked it walking across the road. Nordic Grips it is, then.
So we approached the start line and it appears that everyone has doing a syncronised warm up routine. Seriously. No idea.
Start/Finish
There was around 500 starters for the half marathon and around the same again for the 10k which started a bit later. Everyone calmly got themselves to the starting area in the usual pre race manner. However there were a couple of people with buggies, which in most circumstances would not be strange in a race from what I’ve experienced before. Until you realise the amount of ice around the course which did make me think… they’ll have to be setting off fairly slowly then.
3–2–1… Go.
Immediately the person with the buggy overtook us. Of course.
We started fairly slowly, as might be expected considering the ice. I’ll keep banging on about the ice because I full on stacked it on two separate occasions outside of the race so it kind of framed how I ran here. What was stunning to see, however, is how beautiful the start of the course is. The main street is covered in lights in the shape of love hearts going for around half a mile which is a great way to start. After this, the course takes a turn into the residential area of the town which is just fairytale-esqe. You do this race for the views and they certainly deliver pretty much immediately. Added to this, at each crossroads there were tiny candles in the direction you were meant to turn. It turned out to be stunning and we really had no expectations going into it.
It is cold, but not debilitatingly so. It is dark, but you can actually see. The neckwarmer was a solid investment, though. Basically the quickest was to warm up your nose was by bringing it over your nose, breathing into it and waiting a moment.
They say subtract 20mins from your PB with this race. So we weren’t expecting superhuman times. The thing is the first person back did it in 1:15. That’s unreal. However for Charlie and I to come in at under two hours (we ran together) was still really impressive. There was a moment where we both looked at our watches and then at each other when we knew this was coming under two hours. No words were said as erm, we didn’t want to jinx it, but I’m sure you get the point. We definitely had some left in the system.
So when you cross the finish line the we were drapped in our medals… which really are beautiful. I mean, they feature the northern lights!
What we didn’t expect was the sudden sharp muscle pain when we stopped moving. A stretch absolutely helped but the speed of it was something else. As you might guess, I almost fell over trying to resolve this.
I have to say something about the race organisation and support because it really was something else. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the London Marathon but considering how dark and how cold it is, there is a fantastic amount of support out there and all the race marshalls did what was needed to ensure everything ran smoothly.
And the hot ribena at the end? To die for.
It’s the first race I’ve ever done purely for the experience. I wasn’t worried about my time, I was trying to race anybody, I just soaked it all in. And honestly, probably the best race I’ll ever do. The Polar Night Half Marathon is a race you simply must head to — and pretty much the perfect way to start the year. Tromsø might just be the most beautiful place in the world (see). That alone is worth a visit. And if you run? There northernmost half marathon in the world is here. They even do a marathon in the midnight sun. Maybe see you there?
Just book your place already.
*The rest of the visit to Tromsø? I’ll write about that another time.
