As you may remember, I signed up to the the 45km HalvVasa XC ski race.  If you are a regular reader, you might have noticed a lot more airport posts like this or this or this or photos like this and this than ski posts like this or this.  This is a representative picture of how I have spent my time… I haven’t done the grand addition of my kilometres and hours trained so far in 2011 because I know it will not be a confidence-building exercise. Suffice it to say that I expect to be digging down to find some guts to use in the last half, and finding some time to think of some strong women I have trained with: Erica and Andrea D and Katja, not to mention Jennie and Richard, who I will be chasing the whole race.
Happily, this endeavour will have a fun social aspect as well – we will go with Hasse and Elja to stay at Korfstugan (Elja’s parent’s holiday house) and have a fun weekend together before heading to Mora for the race. So great to have accommodations while we are there, and how awesome to have a weekend with friends too! I think this will put me in the right frame of mind for a fun 5-ish hours on skis. ;) I am really excited to be part of the Vasaloppet experience, it is a really cool part of Swedish culture with some neat history and such a a cool example of Swedes’ all-ages, participatory approach to outdoor activities.  My race is on Tuesday. Wish me luck, and if you want to check out results you can do that here.
Although I am not even done this yet and feeling quite trepidatious, I have already been thinking ahead about what would be fun for the spring… and I have a few ideas. A half marathon is probably just the thing to shake off my airport-bound-sedentary phase!
Good Luck!!! You’ll crush the competition. Just remember to not go out too hard – I know you are a sprinter by heart 🙂
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