And so it was time for my first ever ski marathon in wonderful Ulricehamn. If you remember my last trip there, I was talking about perfect conditions. But with over 600 people signed up, I knew I should not expect anywhere near perfect. I started last because I had no idea how this would go and I know my skis have some speed so I did not want to crash into people. They annouced my name as being the last person to start and the club IK Stern and said I would certainly not be the last to finish. But I am the master of coming last so he should stick around for 5 hours and see.

The start was slow and I had a hard time judging which distance I should have because I had such massive glide. So I was out in the left track passing quite a bit. People were braking on the hills and I am not very good at this so it was crash time quite early. The part of the 10km trail was brutal like before and they added this little elite part which was insane. But I did the first 10km in an hour which was fast. This was partly because I was jumping positions a lot with a guy in a UK hat plus a couple of women. But then it came to the golf course which was just diagonalåkning which I am weaker at. My strength was uphill and that was where I could catch people. So the first lap was total 20km and I was only lapped by about 10 elite. At 2 hours for Lap 1, I knew immediately that I went out far too hard.

I seriously considered quiting but then I thought, nej, I will do this marathon. But I could feel I was weak as soon as I started. The first part was quite nice when it was empty so I could fly nicely down the hills but now the falls were starting to hurt. Overall it was like 15 falls...fan!

At 25km the cramp monster was awake in both of my legs (front and back) plus my right shoulder and I was not at all strong so I stopped for a Squeezy gel. That helped but I knew I had another 5km until I would get any sportdryck and that was a tough battle. In the little elite section they had these quick downhills about the size of the one at MCKs CX race and just as steep and naturally a left corner at the bottom. I took a nasty fall and was quite fed up so the next two of these I actually took off the skis and walked. That was good for the cramps too. This is around when 4 of the 6 people behind me passed. I seem to have been racing those that only did the 20km.

The break was good and 3 cups of sportdryck were gone plus I added a bit more kick wax. Conversation was good so I took a deserved break. They said that it was only the golfcourse left and I had been thinking that too. But the golfcourse was a series of left turns so if you fall you get thrown to the right. Of course today I had already fallen forward and backward as well as right. Some of these corners were at the bottom of hills and there were no tracks plus this 10cm hill of snow down the centre from the braking. In the first of these I managed to stay upright but I switched tracks and ended up in front of a girl who stuck the tips of her skis between my skis and ended up with her arms around my stomach. Yes, how YOU doin'. =) But her and the guy with her were the only ones left so now I was in dead last.

The next left turn went more normal and I fell yet again on my right side. But this time my shoulder was killing and suddenly I could not move my arm. Fan. 7km to go and now what? I started again and tried to use my right arm was it was killing. So at first I tried without using poles or only using the left side but sooner or later the endorphins kicked in and I could move it sort of. This KILLED! All I had to do was get to the elljusspår which I love and could get away with a lot of coasting. There were 3 more left turns on hills and I took off the skis again. I did not want to fall on that side again.

By some miracle I finally made it to where I was supposed to get sportdryck but they were gone. So the last 3km would take the last out of me. Once I was at the elljus I forgot that there were a series of uphills and somehow I managed stakning and walking up the hills. I was gliding down towards the finish area but it is not over yet...you still have to turn back again and up a series of death hills. Today they were death hills.

But by then I was running on that different fuel motivated by a finish line. The final stretch is slightly uphill so I had to diagonalåk som fan and some of those others that had finished ahead were cheering me up to the line where I did one of those single ski slides...as if I had anyone else around.

I finished this freakin' marathon and probably did the last 7km with a seriously damaged shoulder. I have never had so much bodily harm in a single race and despite Lap 2 from hell, my total time was 4:45 for the toughest 40km a motionär could ever see. Of course I was last. But I don't care. Under 5 hours is enormous! To go from zero skiing ability in December to finishing this race February 13th is a hell of an achievement. But Öppet Spår? Not a chance right now.