It's been a week now since running through the finish line in San Pedro. Boy was it hard. A lot harder than I ever imagined but this is hardly any news to those that were there.

For those that weren't there, a short sum of the hardcorest 6 days of my life so far:
Not enough sleep.
Temperatures varying from mildly hot and baking hot to burning hot and very decent level of sauna hot (I know what I'm talking about coming from a country with a long sauna culture :))
Blisters.
Weird tasting dried food, or should I say dubious looking powders of all colours.
COURSE BRIEFING IN 10 MINUTES screams every morning. Introducing the stage with typical keywords such as soft sand, hard packed sand, some climbs, river crossings, 45 degree ascent, sand dunes, soft salt, crusty salt, spiky salt, loose sand, rocky ground etc. You get the picture.
Dehydration.
Awesome tentmates. All of you Laura, Matt, Doug, Ryan, Ian, Pat, Dave! There's noone I'd rather share my last loo roll with :)
Too little toilet paper (now read the point above again).
Blisters.
Ryan Sandes. He'd probably had 3 naps and 3 meals by the time I got in every evening. Bastard! Nah... He's the most humble owner of the most amazing legs on this planet. Go and win everything!
Red feet washing buckets.
Smell of alcohol/cleaning liquid creating an illusion of smell of cleanness.
Sunburns. Tip: dirt really is an effective SPF.
Exploratory trip to the world of pills. Our tent's fave tablets all began with the letter V. Having a couple of docs as tentmates did not hurt either!
Blisters.
Too little water (between desert CPs) and too much water (night stage, had to do a pit stop every 15 minutes).
Packing and unpacking every night and morning.
One near blackout on day 2.
YOU ARE DOING GREAT! cheers at almost every CP. We had the best volunteers, but to describe any painful walk/altitude sickness/loss of appetite as doing great really did sound hysterical at the time :D
Some more blisters. I'm considering a second career at the taping department of ER.
Amazing stars in the sky and the sound of drums marking the last finishers every night.
The longest 10k on the final day. The course planners took the last chance to defne the word moderate :)

I'm writing this in some random hotel in Lima. Have been having EVERYTHING from the hotels breakfast buffes, eating giant steaks for lunches and double topping pizzas for dinners with sangria, beer and litres of fresh orange juice. Not to mention icecreams, chocolates and pancakes every now and then. Yet all my clothes I have with me are about to fall off. Nice workout we had!

For anyone new thinking about doing anything similar: please think again!

For all the folks already at home or on flights or relaxing anywhere near who've gotten the bug: see you at the next one!

Good night and good luck! You are all amazing!

I'm continuously struggling to explain my running with such perfect freestyle conditions over here. Pretty much skipped the whole month of January for some hard-core skiing, but as the excitement is taking over, so are my runs again. Although, I really don't know how much of this cruising through mid-calf deep powder and hitting the harder snow tracks helps. I sure hope it'll be easier in Atacama!

My Salomon XT Wings are perfect. As are Injinji and skiing socks combi. Haven't practiced taping my feet too much. EA Eight Hour Cream has worked wonders for some of the big toe rashes, so may well stick with that.

The major remaining issue is food. It's actually quite complicated to come up with 2000cal/day portions of something semi-edible. Porridge - yes, expedition food - yes, energy bars and snacks - yes. But I want my bananas and simply lack the imagination of what to replace them with and that could be taken through customs!

Still need to sort out how to get to San Pedro from Santiago. Waiting for my sleeping bag and some other items to arrive. Everything at the last minute as always :)

Hope to see you all soon!

It was sweating hot yesterday night on my regular work-out track in the forest. -9C degrees. Whoaaa! Even if it does sound ironic, it's not.
The past week and a half has been like a returning ice age with temps -22...-30C day in and day out. And you can't really do much outside with such cold apart form some very fast skiing. Yet even that is a struggle after an hour as all the body parts with an above average body fat percentage start to freeze.
However, managed to pull off one 2 hr slow pole-run with my 10kg trailpack as well, with semi-frozen mid-layer and no feeling of my butt in the end.

But yesterday was different. 1.5 hours of pure freestyle bliss :) And it continues as it's only -11C today and maybe, m-a-y-b-e slightly warmer in the next few days.

The acclimatization will be fun in San Pedro :) The expected chilly nightly temperatures are surely off my worry-list. Can't really wait for the sun and warmth for a change!

Started to put my packing list together today. Borrowed a scale from my bro to weigh all the gear I already have, as well. I have to say it's kind of fun to pack when the most important (only?) criteria is the number of grams of each item :). After all, a 41g fleece hat is a whole 8g lighter than a 49g fleece hat!

And that's not it, I'm currently going through an experiment of how much of the toothbrush handle to cut off so that it'd still be usable. Anyone seen the Mr Bean episode where he's going through the small vs large luggage challenge? That's me.

With over half of the items still missing, it's just about over 2kg. And beginning to have a few questions.
Exactly how cold is it in the Atacama in March? In Jan last year the nights in San Pedro were no-fleece-needed warm, El Tatio at 4000+m was freezing at nights, but the desert itself? Should I take lightweight or semi-warm long running lycras? Thin or warm gloves? Will layering be enough or do I still need a down jacket?

I'm all for taking as little as possible and to put things into perspective, the last months workout has constantly been below -10C degrees for me. Embarassingly little running, quite a lot of x-country skiing. It's a stretch, but I do try to squeeze at least a couple of longer runs into the weekly schedule.
I am testing my adventure camera as well, so stay tuned for some wintery videos soon :)

It's -10C, about half a meter (and counting) of snow, still very little daylight. Absolutely perfect winter weather for skiing and skating and making snow angels.
My only issue at the moment is that I've not signed up for the Antarctica race but need to keep my fitness level up for a run in the desert heat instead.



However, what could be a better idea than spending the first night of the year running with poles in an empty park with a 6kg backpack, right?

The good thing is that I think I've nailed it with my running shoes and light trailpack. No pain, no blisters so far. Though, I do have started to think about taking my skiing socks to the race instead of all these ultra-engineered water and blister resistant ones I've yet to order...

Oh, and just for the record, I'm one of those with absurdly hectic training schedule, regular overtime at work, i.e. "normal". I hate gyms and pretend that I'm getting enough x-training from occasional laps in the pool, mediocre level tennis and that I have my basic upper body strength achieved since taking up kitesurfing in summer and spending countless hours of having fun in the water. All illusion, I know :)

Good luck with the km/miles you all are putting in. Will have a nice weekend of some serious x-country skiing ahead here in Estonia. Yes, it's even harder than running in the snow!