A wave of scratches of the Yukon Arctic Ultra last week could be frustrating for runners and organizers, but is also becoming a headache for a German researcher.
Mathias Steinach is with the Space Medicine Center and extreme environments in Berlin. His work focuses on the physical effects of extreme cold on high performance athletes.
Yukon Arctic’s Ultra runners travel up to 600 kilometers on foot, bike or skis. This year, the temperatures at the beginning of the race in Teslin were around -40 C, and they have stayed in –30 during most of the race.
The event, where 34 of 61 competitors have abandoned thanks in large part to the freezing caused by an extreme cold, would seem to be the perfect laboratory. But Steinach said that 10 of the 14 runners participating in this last study have abandoned the race.
“Two for three by one, they are abandoning,” said Steinach. “Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it. So, of course, this is negatively affecting our research.”
Study participants use physical conditioning monitors that collect physiological data, including heart rate, burned calories, the number of steps taken, etc.
The athletes began using the monitors in Whitehorse even before the race began, to give researchers some reference data to compare what is happening with the athletes of the athletes during the race.
The ultra course of this year is following the new Yukon Quest route between Teslin and Faro. Much of the route runs along the Canol road, which presents numerous wavy hills. The organizers ultra suspect that the necessary effort to grow those hills is contributing to the high abandonment rate.
“This is a great impact on physiology on energy transfer, energy expenditure,” Steinach said.
“People can’t eat remotely as much as they [exert themselves]. Energy has to come from somewhere. That comes from body energy stores. So fat mass, for example. And then I am interested in how the body adapts to these changes, how big is the impact. “
The Robert Polhammer career organizer said that participation in the study also offers something to competitors.
“It is interesting for athletes because they get many data and information about themselves if they wish, which would help them with their actions in the future or may discover how they can improve, which they may do wrong.”
Steinach has been co -author in numerous documents on extreme cold sports performance, including the previous iterations of the Yukon Arctic Ultra.
He said that even if there are not enough this year’s career data for an adequate document reviewed by peers, researchers could still publish a case study, similar to one of the Space Medicine Center and extreme environments on another punishment walk: the First woman. walk through Antarctica without support.
“It is still interesting to see what a person can do and describe what the human body can really achieve,” said Steinach.
