Engadin Skimarathon 2014 – race report

Week 8 of every year, Finns here in the Helsinki region have their skiing holidays (or Hiihtoloma as they call it). Now normally that’s the time when people go either to some skiing resort for some downhill skiing or then use this time to go on vacation at some warmer destination. For me hiihtoloma is all planned out way ahead of that time… Of course it’s not going to be in week 8, but more beginning of March when the Engadin Skimarathon will take place :-)

Same this time… The invitation arrived in Finland around Christmas time and after the usual hesitation I was signed up. Soon later flights were booked. I decided that similar to last year I would arrive a few days earlier to get myself accustomed to the high altitude and do some skiing on-site. Looking now back at a really warm winter, this was definitely a wise decision.

The program itself hasn’t changed in the past few years that I participated the Engadin Skimarathon. I usually use the few days ahead of the Skimarathon to clock in some more kilometers on my skies and adapt myself to the high altitude. There is of course the mandatory visit to the skiing village to pick up the race bibs and the traditional dinner at the local Italian restaurant the evening before the race. All this is accompanied by some organizational hassling around, packing, strategically positioning our cars for race day and so on…

Weather-wise, this year was perfect! After some snow- and sunless winter in Finland, I was greeted by excellent sunny weather and enough snow to ensure good track conditions for the race and the days before.

Race-wise I knew what I was expecting. After having participated several times now, I by now know the track and every part of it by hart. The only change that I was a bit worried about was the new starting procedure, as this year everyone would have to carry their skies to the starting area and put them on there. Luckily though the expected chaos didn’t take place – and I had a surprisingly good start into my 12th Skimarathon.

In the end I finished with a time of 2:34.18,3, which is a tiny bit slower than last year’s result. Considering the bad training conditions though, I’m actually quite happy with the result. Another interesting information I extracted from the ranking list is that I was the 15th out 73 Finns participating (and yes that includes Riitta-Liisa Roponen who won the ladies race).

With that, I already look forward to next year!