Arctic Running

Marathon together with my husband seemed like the perfect idea. I love running. My husband likes running. So why not running a marathon together? We could support each other while doing something that we both enjoyed and spend lots of quality time together. Perfect, right?

We chose to run the Midnight Sun Marathon together because this race has been on our bucket list for years. Midnight Sun Marathon is a very unique race, it is organised in late June (on the longest day of the year) in Tromso, a small town in Norway above the arctic circle. The race is during the night, but in daylight! Running at midnight in daylight is something that is almost impossible to explain, you have to experience it.

The race passed in somewhat of a blur, the course turned out to be more challenging and complicated than I thought, a lot of running on cycleways, rolling hills and crossing the Tromso’s highest bridge twice. The weather was against us with a temperature below 8 degrees Celsius, non-stop icy rain from start to finish and strong winds — it felt almost like winter. If you’ve ever run a full marathon distance, you know that it is a challenging event – physically, mentally and emotionally. Add your partner and the tough race condition to that equation, and it could spell disaster.

For me, the second half of the race was the hardest, this was the point where things turned bad. My husband hit his usual cramps at exactly the 21 km mark. So we had to walk and find a medic, which we didn’t find until after 3 km. The weather turned for the worse, it started to rain heavily and there was a strong chilly wind against us. Because we walked and got even wetter, I started to feel colder and colder, my wet clothes could not protect me anymore. We were both shivering, my legs felt numb, my feet and toes hurt, I couldn’t talk. I didn’t care anymore what our finish time will be. My husband wanted to quit the race, but I insisted we walk it off. After he put some ice on his legs – both of them – and after we got thermal blankets, we continued the rest of the race.

But, what was killing me wasn’t the rain, the cold, nor the wind. For the last half of the race, my husband couldn’t stop bitching and moaning about everything – it’s his way of coping, he says – but I couldn’t stand it. Seriously, I couldn’t stand it. I think he began by asking whether we could die of hypothermia, then he began asking what are we doing in this bizarre country, still running a marathon at 2am in the morning, in the cold, wet, and facing the wind, while other tourists are just getting out of the bars dead drunk. I kept my distance about 5 meters ahead of him.

At the end, we managed to complete one of the most beautiful (seriously, the view along the course is so beautiful), challenging and unique marathon races in the world together. I think my husband was happy to finish last, or finish at all.

And yes, we ‘re still married!