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.

Okay, fine, now I am making up slogans for cities but it was so worth the 1hr drive today. If you visit Ulricehamns IFs webpage you can get all the info you ever need about their Skidstadion. I will admit to being nervous again since skidstadion implies a place where they might have races and not just a fun little tour in nature. And kuperat som fan it was. But the tracks were perfect and 500 people had not messed them up in the corners so this was truly the best ski experience I have had.

It would have been absolutely perfect with some faster snow since it seemed like konstsnö but not the scratchy stuff they have at Skatås. This was fine snow. I am amazed my klister worked at all but it did. So I did a lap of the elljusspår just to see how conditions were. Then I immediately decided to take the 10km trail since 15km was elitspår and 5km is not enough. The 10km was elit enough for me too. There were some serious hills there which I managed only because it was 'räls' on the track so I just had to sit there.

After that I was feeling a bit tired so I had a Squeezy gel and a couple cookies and decided another 2 laps of the elljusspår would be enough. Lap 1 was okay and during Lap 2 I still felt strong and had energy. This was so much better than last week! So I thought, what the hell, a 3rd and final superlap would be fun. I was basically running up the hills since I had no kickwax left and I was stakning like mad when I could. Someone even moved out of my way since I looked like I meant business. The final spurt was not a Northug style since it was uphill but I made the best of it. 15 minutes for that lap! I realize it was only like 3km but still the hills were there and the snow was slow. And at that speed I would be finishing Vasa in 7.5 hours. Not likely.

So this was 24km of skiing and a whole whack of confidence. The best thing is that I could have went longer...

I headed down to Skatås where they have converted our nice CX track into a konstsnöspår which costs 60kr for 2.5hr. Maybe that sounds expensive but it would cost the same in gas for me to drive to Hindås.

Nervous was an appropriate word for my first ride on the superelite Atomic WorldCup skis. Good news is that the skate bindings work just fine. And I had loads of glide so I decided to take it easy. There is this hill in the corner that I only did twice because it didn't really have a track. The first time down I was fine but the second time I was one ski out of the track and heading for the expected outcome. My first two laps were tough and I fell four times. They are 9cm longer than my old skis so two of the crashes where me tripping over the tips.

But in my defence, where I was falling were places that were technical corners where you had to lift up the ski. I could never do this with the old ones because they were heavy and they tipped on the binding. So I had never really practiced this. But I tried this today...wow...it works! Light skis! Hurray! Then things became fun!

The track is 1.7km so I decided before I got there that 10 laps were going to get done, even if it killed me. The time I went was a bit off in terms of food so this was with no drink and I was damn hungry at the end. I was keeping the same pace with one woman since we passed at the same point but you gotta respect those guys that actually can do this. They were sailing around at twice the speed looking like this was nothing to them while my muscles were just dying.

Today I was somewhere around 9km/h which means new skis has just cut 2hrs off of my Öppet Spår time. The wow feeling is coming...

With rain in the forecast I decided to head over to Hindås again for a lap of their 7km track. That would be all I could manage before it was too dark. The new jacket felt great and it is definitely windproof. The poles were outstanding! This is the first time I had really tried them out in actual trails so my diagonalåkning was pretty good. My skis were, as usual, slow but that was fine since it was icy. There are only 2 downhills there and I fell on the first because the tracks disappeared at the bottom (someone was braking, obviously) but a fall in snow is fine for me.

Since I was only planning 1 lap I was trying to keep a decent speed and that was sort of working. But it takes a lot of energy to try stakning for the entire last km. Öppet Spår and my hotel is paid for but it feels like I am going to have to do it again. Glada motionär pace is fine but I am capable of better than that...

Now my good mood is back. The car started perfectly and the roads are good again. So good that I drove to Hindås to check out their ski trails. The 7km one was supposed to be easy and perfect for Vasaloppet training so I took that.

My skis were prepared in a sloppy way (as usual) with Purple glide and for kick it was a Blue Extra base with a few top layers of VR45 which seemed to be rather right for the day. I still had no real glide but I did on the two nice long downhills. =)

I can definitely say that I will be transferring some spåravgift to Hindås SK for this because the track was absolutely perfect up over the fields. Superb! I even passed 3 people! Of course I was passed by more than that but who cares. This felt great. So great that I stopped after 7km since it had gone well and why spoil a good thing?

Guess where I will be driving more often?

How do you become better at MTB långlopp? If your answer is 'By doing many MTB långlopp' then grattis, you win an expired energy gel I found in my backpack! On Sveriges minsta cykelblogg we can't offer any better contests than this...

Anyway, I thought I should apply this same strategy to skiing. How can I be better at marathon skiing? By trying a couple ski marathons before Öppet Spår. Some searching led me to Intersportloppet which one could call rather perfect Vasaloppet training since it IS the same as HalvVasan. Will I manage 45km of skiing on 22 jan? I have no clue. But it will certainly give me a taste of things to come on 28 feb...

It's a sweaty -1C here so the snow is going and the road salt actually works. My car should start now but I am going to have to head inland to try and ski tomorrow. Over the next few days the snow will be gone here which probably means I will finally get my new skis.

I finally managed to get up to Partille golfbanan after only 2 traffic circle slides in the car. Believe me...that is a low number. I was expecting -11C since that is what SMHI forecasted. So I did a good job of putting the Blue Extra in the kick zone and for some lyx I put on couple layers of Swix VR40. Out of laziness I went with the Purple Liquid for glide. So I headed out to the car and found it quite warm for -11C. Could be because it was actually -2C. Stupid SMHI.

It was very nice in the tracks today because there were tracks and enough snow the whole 6.8km. And the glide was great since I actually put the right glide wax on. The last two times were without since I had no clue how my balance would be. The kick wax? Nja...not very good. My diagonalåkning feels more like running than actual kicking and that meant I was actually catching up to someone on the uphills and falling behind going down. So this was 50 minutes per lap times 2 which equals a nice way to spend half of my birthday.

This speed means my Öppet Spår time is down to 11 hours now. =)
How can I explain my slowness?

1. The course
You would never compare 6.8km on an MTB XC course with 6.8km of långlopp and I think this is the same situation here. Partille golfbanan is not flat or straight and every time you get any speed, there is a corner, uphill or some other obstacle which means you need to start again. There are only really 2 or 3 spots flat spots where you can get any sort of constant speed. So I think this 6.8km is not really what I should expect in Mora. But it is very good training.

2. The skis
My skis are crap. Seriously. When I bought them I weighed about 3kg less than I do now and those skis are one size shorter than the new ones I bought. So I expect that I am slowing myself down with the kick wax. My new skis seem to be stuck in the mail in Jönköping but when I get them I expect one of those 'WOW' feelings. The exact feeling I got when I had a real MTB or my Ridley. Half of my problems are probably the equipment. I hope. But bad skis means way more effort and training for my arms.

3. No fanny pack?
Those bags around your waist seem to be important. Every store has special prices on them now.

By buying rullskidor I have guaranteed that it will be this cold in Göteborg for the rest of the year. If I had bought new skis, we would have rain and 4C. That's how things work. After reading that Partille Golfbana in Öjersjö had 6km of half-decent trails, I knew it was time to make that premiere.

I have not been skiing for about 5 years and when I was skiing I was quite useless. Since then I have been training MTB and running so pulling the skis out of the bag was quite a step. They are pretty scratched and very cheap but oh well. I only put kick wax on since I was not too eager to fly along out of control.

So there I was on the skis and the first thing I could see was that the trail went downhill and there were no tracks. So I took off the skis, walked down and started there instead. Once I got going and could feel that I actually had balance, things got better. But I have absolutely useless technique. The snow was soft so I could slow down on hills and going uphill was fine since I had no glide wax.

It was basically dark and the tracks seemed to be going around every hole of the golf course so I ended up taking a bit of a shortcut. Honestly, I had no idea where I was but it was clear that the small hills all over made this a pretty good workout. Well, it would have been a good workout if I had any speed at all. Now I just have sore shoulder muscles. Anyway, eventually I saw the parking lot. So what about that hill I chickened out on? Well, I ended with that instead and it went wonderfully.