Arctic Ultramarathon Grand Slam

Sarah Lowell wrote The Blogging Post to tell us about her adventure challenge, the Arctic Grand Slam of Ultra Running…

“I am completing the first ever Arctic Grand Slam of Ultra Running. This blog tells about the slam. The final and upcoming event is called 6633 (latitude of the Arctic Circle in degrees and minutes) near Inuvik in the Northwest Territories of Canada. This will be considered the toughest slam in ultrarunning. SL”

I took a look at Sarah’s Arctic Grand Slam blog and she’s been running really long distances in some pretty cold conditions. The 6633 Ultra looks to be the toughest yet. The Northwest Territories are C-O-L-D. The 352.64 mile race began yesterday and reports should be surfacing any minute now on the 6633 website. Check it out to get a feel for the magnitude of this endurance race — it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

Here’s a post Sarah wrote about her 2nd race in the series, The Arrowhead Ultra in International Falls, MN (the Ice Chest of the U.S.)…

“On February 4-6, 2008, I ran race #2 of the Arctic Grand Slam, the Arrowhead 135 mile ultra-marathon. This race is held in International Falls, MN and is part of the 135 world series that also includes Badwater 135 and Brazil 135. The course is very hilly with the exception of the first 18 miles and the last 18 miles. It is a tough course — especially when you are pulling a sled! Runners must pull a sled with a minimum of 15 pounds of survival gear including a -20 sleeping bag, 3,000+ calories of food, stove and fuel, insulated water containers, headlamp, whistle, and reflective materials. By the time you add dry clothes/socks, more food, an emergency parka and a first aid kit, a sled can easily weigh more than 22 pounds.

On Monday, it snowed hard all day and temperatures were in the 30’s. The snow conditions made the trail very slow as there was not much glide for the sleds. The wolves howled loudly that night-it was cool. On Tuesday the snow finally stopped and the temperatures dropped like a bomb. Trail temps on Tuesday night were -20 to -27. I was so exhausted from all the hard work of pulling the sled on Monday that I had to bivy in my -40 bag Tuesday night. I had Carles from Spain and Pat from Duluth join me for my trailside bivy. Our bags and shoes froze solid when we got up and ready to move out 2 hours later. The frozen shoes really beat my feet up. Wednesday was cold to start but warmed up nicely to about 5 degrees and sunny. When I hit the final 15 mile stretch, I knew I had plenty of time to get in under 60 hours. My final time was 56:22. This is one tough event. 2 down, 2 to go!!”

Best of luck to you, Sarah. Send us a race report when you cross the finish line (and thaw out)!