Ok, this is by far not my first time that I’m participating the Engadin Skimarathon, but as I have missed the last two years thanks to my projects in Laos 2011 and Thailand 2012, I was quite excited to finally go on with Family traditions. This year was also the first time that I would be attending as a Finn (still as a Swiss national, but at least living in Finland which was visible from the results as well).
Preparations were going well, and even though winter started late here in Finland, I managed to get some skiing done during the winter season. Compared to other seasons were I had just been skiing once, I was feeling extremely confident that this is going to be a good marathon.
Of course this meant first getting there. But after traveling two days I finally made it to Maloja where my parents are renting their winter cottage for the time of the Marathon. With all the traditions and procedures as usual, it was fairly simple to get ready for the race. Waxing the skiis as usual, packing and parking the car, last dinner at the same restaurant, same table, same host, same time schedule for the day of the race and so on… Totally takes the pressure off and just made the whole experience even more exciting.
Starting from 06:00 the organizers allow people to put their skies in place. Trying to get the best starting position, this of course means getting up in time to be there before all the other 12’000 participants will arrive. 06:12 and our skiis were in the starting area – placed, marked and ready to go..
The sky at that time already showed that it was really going to be a beautiful day (read: lot of sun which means slower skier will have really soft snow tracks).
By the time we came back for the start, the starting area was much more crowded than before.
The race itself was fairly unspectacular. Without any mayor effort I managed to complete the first 20km. Tracks were in excellent condition, meaning rock solid, allowing for the skiis to glide as much as possible. Of course with the snow getting softer, I managed to fall at the Stazerwald descent (aka matress hill). After that, I just tried to keep the good pace I had and I managed to complete the race with a time of 2hrs and 25mins. That’s just a tiny bit slower than my personal best (2:17 – from my teenage times) and actually better than the last time I participated in 2010.
With that excellent result I’m now looking forward to my running season… next up: Länsiväyläjuoksu :-)