Adelaide athlete Aaron Crook wins 6633 Arctic Ultra in gruelling conditions

He has no feeling in some of his fingers and wakes up repeatedly with a cold sweat believing that he is still on the Arctic ice, but Amanok Adelaide is buzzing after winning one of the most hard ultra -marathons in the world.

The 41 -year -old player entered the Ultra Arctic of 6633 of Canada at the end of February in the hope of finishing the exhausting 620 -kilometer walk in which self -sufficient competitors must transport their own supplies.

But after sleeping for 11 hours for seven days, experiencing hallucinations and a steep freezing in -42c temperatures, Crook was surprised to arrive first.

“The temperature in the first days was around the negative brand of 25 degrees, which was actually quite good,” he said.

“But the last three nights, the wind picked up a lot and the temperature collapsed, and it was high less 30s at least 40.

“Every time you needed to do something that required the big mittens, it had to be done very fast, because in a minute your fingers ran the risk of freezing and instantly they would be numb.”

Crook had previously competed in the Marathon Deso Sebles, a 250 -kilometer race through the Sahara desert in Morrrocco.

But that is a staged race and competitors can disconnect and rest every night, unlike the Ultra Arctic, where they must arrive from beginning to end as quickly as possible while carrying their own supplies.

From a field of 14 international competitors, only five managed to finish.

Dinosaurs and teddy bears

Crook said he began to hallucinate since the second night due to lack of sleep.

He managed to sleep two to three hours at the beginning of the seven -day race and another dream of two hours further.

From there it was mostly the occasional sleeping micros, when Crook would lie in his sled for “four to eight minutes.”

“I knew that only my eyes played me, but I was seeing Stardust from my hands,” he said.

“I was seeing teddy dinosaurs and bears and many different things on the side of the road, but it was probably more fun than disturbing, especially because I got used to the phenomenon as the race advanced.”

Crook believed that his minimum sleep strategy helped him win because he would go into security control points later than other competitors, but sleep less and leave before them.

When the competitors transmitted to each other, Crook said that only only the welfare of the other was reviewed, particularly in the posterior stages when the temperature collapsed.

“The bets were much higher in those lowest temperatures and it was almost a bit scary, to be honest,” he said.

“It was a strong side wind … I was constantly hitting the right side of my face and began to lose some of the vision in my right eye.

“I could also feel the freezing on my cheek and the upper part of my nose.

“It’s painful, like [getting] Solar burns in real time.

Crook said he would hold his miton on the side of his face to try to protect him, but at such a long distance he was too demanding to maintain that.

“The fingers in my right hand, I still have no feeling in them,” he said.

“I don’t worry that, since I can see that there is blood flow, so it is really the nerves that need to heal.

“There are no lasting injuries, luckily.”

Touching the sign

The race through the plains of the Yukón eagle ends at Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuvialuit village in the territories of the northwest of Canada.

“They have a sign that is the point where you hit the Arctic Sea and that has always been the end of the race,” said Crook.

“You play the sign and end, and then take you to the local school, which offers your gym to spend time until the race is finished.

“They check their hands and feet fingers and make sure they don’t need urgent medical care, and recovery begins.”

He described the heating within the gym as “glorious.”

“But it was practically a human peel,” Crook said.

Money raised for charity

There was no financial reward to end first, but Crook raised $ 26,500 for the Sebastian Foundation, which supports youth mental health, and the Adelaide Crows Foundation, which works to involve young people in sport.

Both foundations supported the open parachute program that worked to improve the mental health of school students.

“$ 15 takes a child through that program for 12 months, so we have been able to do a really good job there,” he said.

Back in Adelaide since Wednesday, Crook said he had been “very grateful” for his bad temperatures while “defrosting.”

Crook said he had gained “great confidence” in the resistance of his body and mind of experience, but his sleep pattern remained interrupted.

“Almost every hour in the hour I am waking up thinking that I am still in the Arctic, and I am sweating cold, so it has been a nightmare for my wife trying to sleep with me, but I think it is only part of the healing process of everything,” he said.

“I promised that there were no plans [for another ultra-marathon] In the near future.