Rainer Predl, marathon in the fridge at -25° to run at the North Pole – Corriere.it

A feat bordering on the impossible (and improbable) for the Austrian athlete Rainer Predl, 33 years. On Wednesday she concluded a full marathon inside a cold room used for the preparation of ice cream. An extreme “race”: he accomplished 781 times the perimeter of the local — long 54 meters — at a temperature of -25 degrees, taking three hours and 47 minutes. And to complete the feat he had to wear a special suit to protect himself from the harsh cold.

All this for one reason only: is preparing to cross the North Pole at a run in April 2024, in less than a year. So, a good 42.195 kilometres, that’s how long a marathon is. To the devastating difficulties of this test under normal conditions, Predl added an incredible obstacle, the small size of the cell of the Vereinigte Eisfabrik in Vienna, in addition to the prohibitive temperature of -25°C.

A race like this may seem crazy, but it’s not the first for the Austrian athlete, who has already gone beyond the absurd. During the pandemic, in full lockdown, he had ran around his kitchen table. She had done it for 70 kilometres. Still at home, he had then confronted the living room treadmill, on which she ran continuously for seven days; in gardena little more “free”, had given himself over to his specialty: a 100km ultramarathon.

The last venture was particularly difficult. “It was really exhausting in the end my head hurt a lot. You realize that you can’t even drink much because it is very cold. This was the real problem », his story. And again: «Then, the lap to be completed was very short, with only 54 meters available, so it was difficult to reach even a certain speed».