A Galway man who won the world’s “toughest” winter ultramarathon has said he was lucky his “eyes didn’t freeze” over during the event.
Gavan Hennigan completed the 1,600km race on Friday, having spent 24 days, nine hours and nine minutes storming through the Alaskan wilderness.
The event is 18-years-old but so far only 50 people have completed it within the 30 day cut off period.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Hennigan said he is still “dead tired” after what he described as the “ultimate challenge”.
“You’re right in the middle of the Alaska winter and temperatures are down to -40°C and even -50°C wind chill,” he said.
“You’re travelling across Alaska essentially through the interior - you’re on the Yukon River for 300 kms and eventually you hit the coast.
“Then you travel over a large section of sea ice and then you follow the coast all the way up to Nome. So, it’s quite an arduous journey.”
View this post on Instagram
For the entirety of the trip, Mr Hennigan pulled a sled full of food, survival gear and spare kit.
It kept him alive - but the 25 kilos it weighed did slow him down as he made his way through some of the harshest wilderness on planet earth.
“It gets pretty scary out there,” he said.
“There was a point with the wind where it was 40 or 50 miles per hour and it was -50°C windchill and my goggles… actually fogged up and froze.
“So, I couldn’t see out of them and I had to take them off to see where I was going and my eyelids completely froze up.
“I was lucky my eyes didn’t freeze and I managed to get to a sheltered cabin - there are these sheltered cabins along the way - and hunker down there for a while till the wind died off.”
View this post on Instagram
Despite the remoteness, there was a tracker attached to the sled and he was able to keep an eye on whether he was still ahead of his competitors.
“Everyone was following along - friends and family - and you’d be getting updates on the way,” he said.
“You’d get a bit of phone signal here and there in the villages, so you’d get a notification about where the other lads were.
“There were two lads chasing behind and they got close enough, they were about 14 miles at one stage but in the end it was about 20 miles that I finished ahead of them.”
Mr Hennigan is due to fly back to Ireland but said he “might be back” to complete the race for a second time.
