Saturday it was time for Holmenkollen Ski Maraton, a 42k classic from Hakadal to the famous Holmenkollen Ski Arena. Althoug this year it was going to finish at Frognerseteren cause of recontructing of the arena before next years 2011 FIS Nordic Ski World Championships. Woke up to -19C in the morning and at the start it was bellow -20C. BRRRRR! Got my startnumber and decided to stay inside as long as possible. But the 3999 other racers also wanted that, so the smal scool hall got very overcrowded. At one point I actually got scared of not getting out of there to make it to my heat 1 9am race start:-)After a short "cold" warm up I got my warmup chlotes of and headed to start. Got well away, but it was basically just to stay in line until the first aid station at about 10k. From there it opened up and I could start racing my own pace. My skiis was not as fast as I had hoped, but guess that was the same for almost everybody in -20C. From 10k to 20k I lost some places, but thats pretty normal in easy parts of the course for me. My upper body is not big enough:-)
When the sun got out and warmed up the tracks I had some trouble in a few upphils to get the skiis to stick, but I felt strong the whole way and had some energy left for the last 10k. The course change was brutal! Instead of gliding into the Holmenkollen arena, we did a sharp right turn and the last km was steep, steep uphill. And to make it worse it was in the sun and on produced snow. That meant it was like skiing in clean sugar, and no way to get the skiis to stick. A bit frustraiting cause I had energy left to really sprint, but there was no way I could use it. Just had to run outside the tracks or pull myself up on my weak arms. But I got there in 2h 40min and 45sec. It was an ok race, and good training for the upcomming 90km Vasaloppet.
Results here:
