THE ICEMAN RUNNETH

Matt Kollat’s 100-mile ultramarathon in Mongolia, the Mongol 100, was about so much more than just running – it was an otherwordly and profound experience

What do a public servant from New Zealand, a COO of a skilled nursing facilities company from California and a hotel development manager from the UK have in common? Well, they all completed a 100-mile trek across the surface of a frozen lake in Northern Mongolia, slept in traditional nomad camps and endured subzero conditions. And those weren’t even the most challenging parts of the journey.

During a prolonged heatwave last year in the UK, I signed up for Rat Race’s Mongol 100 (ratrace.com). At the time, the idea of being in a calm, cool environment sounded like a dynamite idea. I’m a decent runner and don’t mind the cold either; therefore, the Mongol 100 felt like the kind of thing I would be into.

In hindsight, I was naive to think running that much on ice and trying to recover in traditional Mongolian gers was something I could prepare for in the UK. I’ve never done an ultra before, although I’ve run marathons, so I thought I had a decent base fitness level to work with. In my head, the Mongol 100 wasn’t a 100-mile ultra race; it was 16 consecutive 10km runs spread over four days – that didn’t sound too bad.

In terms of training, I didn’t go out of my way to do extra-long runs. The prep for the Mongolian excursion coincided with my London Marathon 2023 training, and I had plenty of long weekend runs planned as is. I had a couple of training sessions wearing my day pack but other than that, I focused on putting in the miles every day.