A TEAM OF 14 women are set to take on the Arctic Challenge in aid of the Irish Heart Foundation, hiking, camping and trekking around the 350km-long Arctic Circle in -20 degree weather.

Judith Gilsenan, the commercial director of the Irish Heart Foundation who is also participating in the challenge, said the group are raising funds and awareness for the ‘Her Heart Matters’ campaign.

Research the campaign is trying to share includes the fact that one in four women in Ireland dies from heart disease. The illness in women is vastly under-researched, according to the Irish Heart Foundation.

The group is hoping to raise €100,000 in donations, and are on track to meeting that goal. They will land in Kilpisjärvi, Northern Finland on Thursday morning, 13 March.

Some of those participating on the challenge, such as 45-year-old Lisa Byrne, have chosen to make the journey for deeply personal reasons. Byrne, a pharmacist, wants to change her health following her father’s heart attack.

“My dad Liam, who is now 75, had a heart attack at 50 and was diagnosed with Type-2 diabetes at the same time. At the time, he was only five years older than I am now. It’s frightening,” she said.

The Co Offaly native has recently quit smoking and is hoping the Arctic Challenge can be the wake up call she needs to focus on her health – which, she says, she has been put off while she works to care for others.

The group will spend six days trekking and hiking through the snow, using snow boots and cross-country skis. They will camp each night in below-freezing conditions and learn new survival skills along the way.

Training for the challenge began a year in advance.

Speaking to The Journal ahead of their departure, Gilsenan, who has done the trail before, said that the trip gained immediate attraction. She added that women who tend to go on the trip are “of a generation that weren’t encouraged to do this stuff”.

She said: “This is, kind of, an extreme version of rebelling against that. Going, ‘Hang on, I’m a tough nut. I’ll show you.’

Gilsenan said that the aim of the trip is to primarily raise awareness of the difficulties with women and heart disease, claiming that it is often that women presenting with symptoms are misdiagnosed with something else.

She added that some who go on the trip are trying to prove their capabilities to the themselves and others, while also raising awareness and money for something important to them.

“A lot of the women are 45-60 years old. They’ve dedicated their whole lives to their families and they’re kinda squeezed in between teenagers and elderly parents.

“They see this as an opportunity to say ‘I’m always dedicated all of my time to other people and this is a chance for me to do something kind of extraordinary just for me’.

“But also, ‘This has happened to me in my life. I’ve lost people to heart disease and I have had my own friends get sick’. Places were snapped up really quickly.”