Reflections on a long ski trip

Those of you who know me professionally know that I also do "lessons learned", so for the benefit of any other mad cross country skiers, here are some of the lessons I learned.

1. No-wax skis are definitely slower and a lot more effort - probably 20% slower and 20-30% more effort.
2. I need a wider range of waxes (with a bit of luck I'll get some more when I am in Helsinki)
3. I need to learn to wax skis better
4. For some stretches I need to get some poles with bigger baskets. I couldn't get any this time
5. Ski pole length is critical; the traditional way of relating it to height alone is not sufficient - it needs modifying according to leg length.
6. A few lessons from a good coach made a huge difference
7. Although I was fitter and faster, I need to improve my balance and technical ski control for a couple of sections - the first few 20km of the first and last days.
8. I need to improve my nutrition - I find that I just cannot eat enough

The question is how to address some of these?

I can try Nordic walking now I know exactly what I should be doing with my poles. A few people train on roller skis - this strengthens the arm muscles (one guy - Nikola) can double pole uphill with the strength he has gained this way.

With a balance board, and exercises (such as the Tibetans) I can improve my overall flexibility. That leaves me with the lack of training on snow and practice waxing. By 2014, they are supposed to complete an indoor ski centre about 15km from here. Although it is for downhill skiing, if I go at a quiet time I can at least improve balance and control of skis, and test out waxing. Next year I already have a week booked in early February in Norway, so I will at least get some training on snow.

Thanks to the people who sponsored me for Sports Relief.

Tony

Day 7 - the final frontier

Breakfast today was at 6am so some people were up at 5.15am. We were supposed to wait until the trail was laid at 7.30am, but a lot of people had already gone, so being one of the slower ones, I set off at 7am.

The first 20km or so today are probably some of the most technically challenging parts of the whole trip, being a very narrow track winding up and down mostly through the forest. Contrary to popular belief, Finland is not flat, but I do think they try their hardest to emphasise the point by taking you every rise they can find.

The picture here is passing through a clearing, with the sun not long havng come up.

By now, I am so exhausted that balance and leg strength to control skis on fast one metre wide tracks - never by best skiing ability - fail me from time to time and I fall more today than the rest of the week. At another point, I had only just cleared the forest road I was crossing (being slow at it) when a big truck passed behind me.

Alas we had to use a bus shuttle to cross the river. The traffic crosses a dam, which carries traffic in single file alteratively and the railway line also crosses the dam. With the temperature at +3C, and it has been positive during the day, you can see things starting to melt. Even some of the roads are clear - some of the minor roads they had put snow on so that we could cross them without having to take skis off.

The relief when crossing the finish is a mixture of things - not another step further on cross country skis. I got someone to take a picture of me with my Sport Relief T-shirt on, but I was so tired, and someone else was coming along, that I didn't have time to put my skis back on.

Don't forget you can still give to Sport Relief on the right.

I will make one more post in the next day or two to summarise some of the highlights, and things worth noting for anyone else thinking of taking on the longest organised cross country ski trek in the world. Next year will be the 30th anniversary trek, and yes, there are people who have done every single 29 treks so far.

Day 6 - another warm day

Yet another day when the temperature goes above zero. After yesterday's problems with wax in the afternoon, the question was what to do with the strategy today. We had only one point - 19km out of 61km where we met up with the bus. Thus I had a high risk, lower effort, strategy of staying on waxed skis or a lower risk, higher effort strategy of changing to waxless skis at this point.

So I took the lower risk strategy, as our bus guide had not managed to get me a wax to use around zero. But I can honestly say that there is a considerable effort differential. Instead of maintaining say 10km/hr on good waxed skis, waxless manage about 8km/hr. As well as this, they require probably 20-30% more effort to cover the same distance.

Tomorrow we cannot ski all the way, as the rivers are not solid enough ice - since one river crossing is several kilometers, it is quite spectacular, but not one to be undertaken lightly.

Day 5 - Wax is a new swear word.

Managed good progress this morning, keeping up with many of the faster skiers. This includes someone better not identified because they are skiing with a sort of exo-skeleton on one knee because a downhill skiing injury from a couple of months ago is still healing.

However, after the last stop, things started to go wrong. Waxes are very temperamental in the region around freezing point. So I set off using exactly the same wax I had been using only a few minutes earlier, but there was no grip. Then after a couple of kilometers, it changed from no grip to being rooted to the spot. I had the same problem with my next wax. Fresh snow then started falling, which calls for a different was again. After everyone had long since passed me, I ended up stripping all the grip wax and ending up with the only wax I had that did not root me to the spot. However, the downside of this is that it did not give me any grip whatsoever. So I had to struggle along very slowly for a few kilometers until the temperature dropped and my wax started to have a bit of grip.

However, waxing apart, it was a nice day, and where else would you be greeted by someone in a polar bear outfit as you ski into a rest stop!

Day 4 - when I make a big mistake

Let me start by posting the map of the day:

Notice anything odd about the trail - yes, it does go round in a circle at one point. I missed the turn off after the first rest point and ended up doing a nice tour of the Syote National Park (just like one of the managers had suggested we do at the previous evening's briefing). When I got back down to the bottom, found an RR sign and followed it, I ended up back at the first rest stop after a detour of 12km. Except now it was packed up, which meant that I was behind the safety snowmobile that follows behind the last skier. However, the rest stop is also a small cafe, so I decided the safest thing to do was to go inside and call the organiser and explain what had happened and where I was. At least I was at a known point. My phone has much better maps on it than my GPS, and even Nokia's maps, which show pretty much every track in Finland showed nothing for a radius of about 10km or more.

When in doubt, it always pays to do the lowest risk thing - in this case, staying where I could easily be found. After all, as competing cross country skiers, we are not usually wearing enough clothing to keep ourselves warm if we are not moving, not usually anything else much (a mobile phone, a bit of high energy food, a space blanket and a small wind up torch are my emergency kit).

What happened next shows just how well organised things are. A snowmobile was despatched to collect me, with a sledge for my skis. This cheerful Laplander turned up, and took me on to the next rest stop, where the second coach was held back and took me on to the next rest stop, where I was able to rejoin ahead of the safety sledge. This is how I ended up only skiing 67.2km instead of the planned 84km.

The sad thing is that I was actually fit enough to have completed it, but this is a remote part of the world and safety must always come first, and I would never want to risk the safety of other people just because of my mistake.

As for the skis, after the prepared waxing wore out, my own call on waxing seemed to work out, and I managed a very respectable progress.

Cross country skiers can never have enough waxes, and now I understand why.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the volunteers. Well, in some places, the entire family turns out to staff a rest station:

Tomorrow is actually the shortest day, and we already know that the ice is not strong enough to support the track preparation machinery. Today, I had no falls until the last few hundred metres. The last 2km are on a frozen lake; at one point there is an amber "road works" type light to draw attention to weak ice some 50-100 metres away. At other points you could see where water had flowed over the top of the ice and then frozen again. But also we had some fresh snow, and a snow pocket collapsed under my weight (I am probably the heaviest skier) and threw me off balance.

Day 3 - just when you thought things were going well

There was quite a lot of snow overnight and it was noticeably warm this morning. Nice fresh, soft, slow snow - just what my family like for cross country skiing, but no s good when you have to travel a long distance with minimum effort.

So I started on waxed skis and was going well for the first couple of hours. But then, as the temperature rose, I got great clumps of snow sticking to the skis. THink of this as being like going out in wellies into really sticky mud and getting rooted to the spot. At times I was having to clear my skis every few hundred metres.

So after lunch I tried the waxless skis. They went up hills an absolute treat, but very slow gliding, even slower than most people's waxed skis. From comparison tests I have done in previous years between waxed and waxless skis on timed training loops in the same conditions, I have concluded that in god conditions, you can average the same if there is enough uphill, but there is a 10-20% effort premium. And generally I reckon waxless are about 1km/h slower. Which for tomorrow's stint would add an hour and a half and a lot more effort.

As you can see from today's tracks, we don't actually go the straightest way across Finland.

Whether I do the full 86km tomorrow depends very much on conditions. Based on today, I would not be in until after dark. So it will be a question of seeing how it goes.

Day 2

Before I write anything else, I should say how grateful I am to all the volunteers who stand for hours in very cold temperatures to supply us with hot drinks, raisins, chocolate, slices of orange, pickled dill cucumbers (for salt).

It makes a huge difference to skiers like me - at 92kg I am already top weight and if I had to carry a few kilos of hot drinks, it would be debatable if I could do it. It is surprising how much you do drink.

Today I was treated to the Lapland "mirage". The notable thing about a mirage is like the end of the rainbow - it moves away as you travel, so you never get any nearer. My Lapland "mirage" are the three thirty something girls skiing together who never go closer or further away.

Conditions were good today; for the first section, I mantained an average of 10 km/hr even after the first rest stop. However, a stretch or two on icy roads, a strong headwind (which also at times obliterated the tracks), and a 20 min lunch stop reduced this average bit by bit. Finally, I have to say that the trail planner must be some sort of sadist, as the last 5km are designed to go up and down the same hill about half a dozen times in the last 5km.

The good news is that I was about an hour faster on this leg than I was two years ago, and the final average of 8.3km/hr is above my minimum target of 8km/hr, which would see me cover the longest leg in under 11 hours, compared to the 12 hours last time which saw me finishing in the dark - something that really slows you down. The overcast sky today gave a very flat light, which made it impossible at times to see where the track grooves actually went - something that is a little disconcerting when doing 40km/hr downhill.

Currently it is snowing heavily - we expect more than 10cm and it will also be warmer tomorrow - probably starting at about -2C and going to +2C by the afternoon. This is not good for skiing. I am having glide wax put on my waxless skis, as in warm and soft snow condtions, the waxless skis keep a more constant performance than waxed skis. The downside is they don't normally glide as well.

I have gained some raw patches on my right forefinger, but these are manageable. I also skied today in the new boots - the ones I am still breaking in. As a result, I have a nice blister. But this will go down, and the next couple of days I will ski in the older, softer boots.

For Chloe and Bethan - I am skiing close to where Father Christmas lives, so if I see him, I will tell him to remember you at Christmas.