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March 2009, Finnish news: a Dutchman runs a marathon half-naked.

Story

Finnish news: a Dutchman runs a marathon half-naked. In Lapland. In shorts. In open sandals.

Wim Hof, the Iceman. Online, he has two camps: the cold makes you superhuman, or it just makes you cold.

Guinness counts eighteen of his records. Under the ice of a Lapland lake, he swam fifty-seven and a half metres. The day before, his eyes froze. The marathon took five hours and twenty-five minutes. He finished walking, beside his son. And the finish line? The shore of Pakasaivo. Its old nickname: Lapland's Hell.

Later, scientists scanned him. His heat came from his own muscles, working hard, not from some special fat. The Iceman is his own stove. His own words: heat and cold are our great teachers.

Finns never had to become the stove. We built a little house around one.

Cold water can stop your breath. Never go in alone.

The pages in the film are our drawings in the manner of Finnish teletext; none is a real page.

Sources: Yle Uutiset, "Hollantilainen juoksee maratonin puolialastomana" (5 March 2009); Guinness World Records; Metsähallitus on Pakasaivo; Muzik et al. (2018), NeuroImage; Sauna Talk (2017).
Sounds: Freesound (CC0): mohomran, kyles, florianreichelt, Vrymaa, mcmikai, TRP, tonalt; Mökkiperikunnalle sounds (CC0).

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