500 km non-stop in Lapland: new extreme challenge for Thierry Corbarier, runner from Toulouse

He’s preparing to ride 500km non-stop at a free pace in this extreme race in Swedish Lapland. Passionate about trails in polar conditions, Thierry Corbarier, a 54-year-old entrepreneur from Lagrasse-Dieu (Haute-Garonne), starts on March 3 in the mountainous Arctic Lapland region of Overkalix in the province of Norrbotten. a racer who crosses the Arctic Circle, pulling a 16 kg sled with his equipment.

The first Frenchman to win the 2023 Iditarod 1000, the longest race in polar conditions at 1,650 km, the Toulouse runner hopes to complete the ultra-endurance event in six days, which features a total altitude difference of at least 3,000 m across forests, lakes and rivers, along the trails of Swedish Lapland. The route is marked but is often covered in fresh snow and the weather conditions are very harsh with temperatures dropping to -40°.

“We sleep from 1 hour to 1.5 hours a day”

“I started trail running in 2005 during the Sables Marathon in Morocco, which gave me a taste for these extreme races in extraordinary landscapes,” says Thierry Corbarier. In 2009 I won the Trans 333 race in Morocco in 56 hours, a record that still stands to this day. In 2019 I started racing in polar conditions, becoming the first Frenchman in February 2019 to win the Yukon Artic Ultra in Canada by 17 hours. This new polar race in Swedish Lapland will be my last before heading off on a world tour with my youngest son. »

To cope with this new challenge, Thierry Corbarier trained for months, including pulling a wheel for two to six hours a day to simulate the weight of his sled. In addition to running, he conditioned his body by cycling and rowing. Equipment and automation were also subject to special preparation during the race. “We put in almost 20 hours of effort a day and sleep between 1 hour and 1.5 hours a night, so I practice quickly getting into a sleeping bag or mastering the gas stove to melt ice into water,” explains the runner from Toulouse, who does not take and will sleep on the ground. “But I was not well prepared for the cold in the Pyrenees, where the temperature was too mild…”

Therefore, Thierry Corbarier plans to travel to Sweden a few days before the race to prepare his body for the extreme temperatures he will face. So the Montane Lapland Artic is Toulouse’s last race before he sets off on a round-the-world trip in November with his 18-year-old son Ian, cycling a 25,000-kilometre route and crossing the Atlantic in a row of 50 people. 70 days…