Mercian reservist braves 'toughest, coldest and windiest' ultra-marathon for charity

A British Army officer braved the cold for two days to complete "the toughest, coldest and windiest" ultra marathon on the planet.

Mercian Regiment Reservist, Second Lieutenant Charlie Hubbard, took on the Arctic 663 250-mile challenge to raise money for two important charities.

The challenge is a non-stop, self-sufficient race across the Arctic Circle, and 2Lt Hubbard finished the race in second place.

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Speaking to BFBS's Gini Carlin, he said: "You had seven days to get from zero kilometres to 400 which is at the Arctic Circle.

"Obviously for me, my race ended at 200km, where I got second place and that was for a whole host of reasons.

"In the end, seven people didn't finish, four made the 200km mark with myself and finished there, and one person pushed on and managed to do the full 400km. Huge respect to them."

He added: "I've never been really outside colder temperatures than maybe like a -5°C before but, in the race, it drops to -43°C in the night-time.

"Everything was frozen – my water, my food, sleeping bag, all my clothes and, at that point, electronics stopped working as well.

"It really feels like a death zone territory at that point."

The Army reservist took on the challenge to raise money for the Mercian Benevolent Fund, and the cancer charity Oddballs, with his fundraising mission part of the appropriately named 'Project Extreme Balls.

He said thinking about the importance of the charities that were "close to his heart" inspired him to keep going.

He continued: "There were two kinds of hardships that stuck out to me. The first one was energy expenditure.

"I probably burnt, in the two-and-a-half days it took me, 25,000 calories, around that point. I probably consumed between five to six thousand.

"When it gets to -35°C or -40°C you can't afford to take your gloves off, so you're really pushing from each checkpoint to each checkpoint.

"This was my first ultra-marathon, so I wasn't sure what to expect."