A running debut with spikes and perspective

It has fallen snow in Nuuk.

Not much just enough to make the roads smooth and the silence dense. The kind of snow that dampens the sounds from the city, so that you suddenly hear your own breathing more clearly. I'm standing outside the hallway with my running shoes, which today have new equipment: small spikes fastened in black elastic straps under the soles – tiny insurances against the unpredictability of winter and a promise of full ski safety.

It has fallen snow in Nuuk.

Not much just enough to make the roads smooth and the silence dense. The kind of snow that dampens the sounds from the city, so that you suddenly hear your own breathing more clearly. I'm standing outside the hallway with my running shoes, which today have new equipment: small spikes fastened in black elastic straps under the soles – tiny insurances against the unpredictability of winter and a promise of full ski safety.

One step at a time

I must run to the end of the world. That sounds dramatic, but in Nuuk "the end of the world" is a place. A corner of Qinngorput, where the road stops and the fjord takes over. Here the city ends and the world remains for rocks and water. A suitable place to run to when you want to feel that you live - and maybe also just remind yourself of how fragile you are when one ventures into the territory of nature.

Today I intentionally left my Apple Watch and AirPods at home. I want to feel my body, not measure it. Listen to nature, not playlists with pop music, as I usually do. The first meters feel foreign. The spikes scrape against the asphalt where the snow has melted, and the body tries to find its balance between caution and progress.

When the world opens up

I run through a landscape that have already taken on the colors of winter: gray skies, snow on the side of the road, and the mountains on the horizon, standing like dark creatures under the light clouds. The air is dry and cold, it stings the nose. I feel how every breath forming small clouds in front of me, as if I were blowing steam out into the world. After a couple kilometers the spikes start to feel like an extension of my own feet. They bites into the snow, creaks with every step, and I begin to trust them — in a way that you can only trust something that you have screwed up yourself the attempt to tame nature.

The road winds along the coast. Here the wind is different – ​​sharper, more direct. Below me lies the fjord, dark and calm, and on the other side I can make out the mountains in Nordlandet. It feels like the world is opening up – and closing – on same time.

At the end

When I arrive, I can't stop help stop it. The road ends and the world opens before me — for a moment, where I just have to stand still and take it all in. Before me lies the sea, heavy and blue. I take a deep breath and feel the wind grab my jacket. Here, at the "End of the World", there is nothing to do – only stand and let yourself be reminded about how small you are and how big everything feels.

On the way home, I think about how much a pair of spikes can change the way you move get on. Not just physically - but mentally. It's like they allow me to trust a little more in the winter. Accepting that the snow and ice is not an obstacle, but just another form of substrate. When you run towards the end of the world, you learn that boundaries are rarely fixed. They move - just like the snow, the wind and yourself fear.