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Roberto Zanda was hauling a sled loaded with life saving gear — a tent, sleeping bag, cooking stove, food, spare clothes — on a trail in the middle of the frozen Yukon landscape when a man with dark glasses appeared. The man urged the Italian ultra-racer to head for a cabin in the nearby woods and to climb through the window. Someone was there waiting to help. And Roberto Zanda needed help.

The Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra bills itself as the “world’s toughest and coldest ultra race.” This year’s edition of the 480 kilometre slog, across frozen rivers, up and down mountain steeps and along fir tree-lined dogsled tracks, in February, was among the coldest on record, with temperatures touching -50 degrees Celsius. As the around-the-clock event edged into its sixth day, Zanda was one of only three competitors left on the course, the others having surrendered to the brutal conditions, many suffering from frostbite, hypothermia or both.

Photo by Joe Bishop/Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra

But Zanda endured. His nickname — Massiccione — means the “tough one” in Italian. He had run across Middle Eastern deserts, traversed jagged mountain ranges and pushed through blistering African heat, never wavering. His muscled legs looked like tree stumps. But as another night wore on in the Yukon, the 61-year-old felt a surge of panic. He wasn’t battling a desert sun but a deep, foreboding cold, a cold that could freeze exposed skin in two to five minutes and that had wicked into his body, gnawing at his legendary reserve, muddying his judgment.