Vasaloppet, cross-country ski race

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What an experience! I am so glad I decided to participate in the original Swedish long distance ski race Vasaloppet, together with 48000 other people. I had my race of 45 km (28 miles) yesterday, races are occurring over many days to accommodate the demand. Below is a youtube video from the race by Volvo cars where I feature in a yellow jacket.

Gunilla Gard - VASALOPPET 45 2022 - 04:08:17 - YouTube

The event is very well executed. It is all happening in the little town of Mora in the province of Dalarna (or Dalecarlia in English). Over 500 years ago, Gustav Vasa, a Swedish nobleman, was skiing away from Mora fleeing his enemies. The Dalecarlians decided to get him back and make him king and two ski runners caught up with Vasa in the village of Sälen, 90 km away. The return trip from Sälen to Mora became the Vasaloppet ski race that has been going for 100 years!

I did half the race (45km), from the village of Oxberg to Mora because 90km is more than I can safely handle. As I wrote in my previous post, I have been been in Sweden training during 4 weeks, and I needed every day to get better at ski techniques. I did improve, seeing my mile times drop over a minute and I stopped falling in the down hills too. In total, I got in about 143 miles (230km) on the skis before the race. Most of this training was done on the race course, so I got familiar with the trail.

Morning of race, a bus brought me and other racers to the start in Oxberg. It was a bit early, so I was grateful to find a large heated tent, rest rooms and food and drink. We could keep warm clothing to the last minute and they were transported back in labelled plastic bags to the finish. 

Start was done in groups of a few hundreds in 15 minute intervals and timing chips gave us individual times at start, finish and at several checkpoints on the trail. I was unsure of my ability against the others racers, men and women of all ages, so I positioned myself toward the back of my start group. It went fine until we had to converge on a narrower trail through the woods where we got a little delayed.

At some point early in the race I pulled a muscle on the left side of my chest. It probably happened when we converged, because I had to do many fast jerks to avoid colliding with other skiers. At first I thought it was a stitch, and I slowed down trying to get rid of it. But the pain just got worse through the race and I sometimes had difficulty stretching out as much as I wanted. Maybe it was for the best, I had a fantastic race, lasting in style to the end and finishing a lot faster than anticipated. 

I also had good skis, both grip and glide. I value this race as one of my most exciting ever, maybe because it was so hard or maybe it was the traditional blueberry soup. 






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