RR day 1 the tortoise and the hare or to wax or not to wax!

For my first RR back in 2010 I arrived in Kuusamo with a single pair of traditional waxless skis. Or rather I arrived 24 hours before my skis. So I spent the first day on rented waxed skis. Testing back to back convinced me at that time that the extra effort required of waxless skis on an endurance event was too high a price to pay.

Since then, I have on tricky occasions on subsequent RRs tried waxless again but never found the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages.

So despite testing it was with great trepidation that I stood at the start of the RR on waxless skis. The first few kilometres were exciting but that was down to a lack of technical skills  on my part and a recovering ankle.

The skintecs worked well. Frequently people would pass me only to stop and re wax skis trying to find something that worked.

After the soup stop in early afternoon, I swapped out the double strip (better glide and less kick) for the full width single strip (more kick/grip and less glide). I did find a minor problem when trying to change - the little hole for the key gets filled with ice and it takes a while to prise the ice out to be able to get the key in to swap.

But all in all, they cope very well with changing conditions from below zero to above zero, from loose fresh snow to pack ice in the tracks.

Today was a total of 61.65km according to the GPS - from close to the Russian border through to the top end of the city of Kuusamo - as shown on the map.

As can be seen from the picture of me at the start, I am not very good at selfies, especially with gloves and with by breath fogging it up.

I arrived in Kuusamo at 5.30pm - about the time I normally arrive. But I took it steady today in order to save energy. The mistake I made in my first year was to put too much effort into the first day. This is not a mistake I have ever made again. For someone with my level of fitness, conservation of energy is important if I am to make it through the week.