JULIAN Bartlett isn’t just expecting the Yukon Arctic Ultra – in which he will be attempting to cover 515km in six days at minus 25 degrees centigrade – to be tough.

He’s hoping it will be.

He and his team mates signed up for the race after they took part in the Marathon de Sables in 2007, a gruelling six-day endurance race across the Sahara during which competitors have died in the past, and were disappointed that it hadn’t been hard enough.

It seems unlikely that the Yukon Arctic Ultra will be a similar let down.

It is a continuous rather than a staged race, meaning that rest breaks are not built in. They are planning to sleep for just three hours out of every 24, bedding down on the snow without the shelter of a tent.

The team of four will be dragging all their equipment, food and clothing behind them on a sled, running as much as possible over the snow and ice.

Unsurprisingly, the race has a 51 per cent drop-out rate.

“Without being blasé about it, one of the reasons we entered the Yukon Arctic Ultra so quickly after the Marathon de Sables was that it hadn’t challenged us as much as we had expected,” says the 35-year-old adventurer from the New Forest.

“We love the thrill of pushing ourselves to new limits and what you learn about yourself when you’re undertaking these things. We all tend to live within our comfort zones and not realise our potential. It’s when you push your limits that you learn about yourself and what’s important in your life.

“It’s quite an emotional experience, almost spiritual. We had hoped that the Marathon de Sables would push us into those dark places where you are really soul searching – you’re on that fine line to just stop and you feel you can’t go anymore.”

Julian and his friends, known as Team Helmut, have been taking part in adventure races since 2000.

He has always had a taste for action and adventure.

A talented skier from an early age, at 13 he was selected for the England Alpine Ski Team and at 18 he was a member of the British Ski Team.

He and his friends take part in an adventure race every two years, filling the rest of their time with trail running, mountain biking and various smaller races.

“I think the motivation to be training all the time comes from having competed from an early age in my own sport as well as growing up in the New Forest and used to being outdoors.

“It becomes part of your daily life and not having that feels like there’s something missing – you feel low when you’re not training.”

There has been no danger of Julian and the other members of Team Helmut feeling low due to lack of training recently.

They began training specifically for the event in August. It has involved lots of long sessions, dragging tyres round parks for hours, camping out overnight on the North Downs without a tent and getting up in the middle of the night to carry on hiking as well as travelling to Sweden for cold weather training.

Julian admits that he and the rest of the team like their creature comforts as much as anyone else and says there are times, when he has had a hard day at work – as a consultant in London – and it’s cold, dark and wet when his motivation to train falters but he never actually finds an excuse not to do it.

“You know you’re not just letting your team-mates down, you’re letting yourself down if you’re not training to your potential. It’s going to be a tough event and the easier you can make it on yourself by being prepared the better.”

Julian adds that at least 50 per cent of the strength needed to complete a race like the Yukon Arctic Adventure is mental.

“You can keep pushing your body as long as you’re looking after it – putting in fuel and water – and it will adapt very quickly. It’s the mind that will go first.”

The race begins on February 15 and Julian is expecting around 20 people to be taking part.

“We’ll be enduring temperatures of around minus 25 degrees but with wind chill last year it got down to minus 55 degrees,” says Julian.

“There are check points every 35 miles where they will be providing hot drinks and possibly some food, though we’ll be carrying our own food. Our plan is to run where we can or fast walk pulling our sleds which have got about 20kg on them.

“We’ll be on the move for 20 hours out of every 24 and sleep for three hours within that.”

As well as taking part in the race for the pleasure of the training and the challenges it poses, the team are also hoping to raise a lot of money for Breast Cancer Care.

They chose the charity after team member Si Bayliff’s mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2007.

“I’m very close to her and seeing her go through that has been incredibly humbling. We go out and push ourselves physically and mentally but that’s nothing on the scale of what someone with cancer goes through. We put it to her that we’d like to raise money for a cancer charity and she was delighted and suggested Breast Cancer Care.”