Ski-trail in Tannheim

by Nancy L. Caviët

May 23, 2010

Just one week before the König Ludwig Lauf in Oberammergau is the Ski-trail in Tannheim in Austria. On the same weekend as the Marcialonga.

I could leave home for my holiday thursday 28 January and arrive in the Alps Friday 29 January. So for me was the Marcialonga ( 70 km) to long. I decided to do a shorter race not far away from Oberammergau.  I had never done the Ski-trail in Tannheim and was in for a new race. I registered for the 14 km Classic on Saturday and the 35 km skating on Sunday.
The start and finish is in Tannheim. (Altitude 1097 m)

It is not difficult to get in Tannheim. I went by train to Reutte and the last leg by bus.
To get from Tannheim to Oberammergau is by bus to Reute an than by train to
Garmisch-Partenkichen from there by bus to Oberammergau or by train to Murmau and from there to Oberammergau. It takes about 4 hour. Read the rest of the story....

A 106 km Roller-ski Challenge in Brittany

May 9, 2010

 “They are mad, those Bretons!”
There are many different sports suitable for summer training of XC skiers. Running, biking, hiking, rowing and roller-skiing are the most popular ones. We have published on our website stories about hiking around the Mont Blanc, biking in the Dolomites and in the Melbourne area. Here is a story about a roller-ski challenge in Brittany. The reporter was Boris Petroff, who participated himself in the Challenge.

Brittany is a French region, the big peninsula poking its nose in the Atlantic. Brittany never receives snow and it is the region located farthest away from the mountain areas. It is also the country of Asterix, the comic strip hero, and his indomitable Gauls (the sub-title is a citation from it). That’s why there is a XC ski club near the city of Rennes, whose members practically never see snow. They are XC skiers who practice almost exclusively roller-skiing: it is the club Breizh Ski-Roues. Breizh is the breton (a celtic language) word for Brittany.
This club will celebrate its 20 th anniversary in 2010. With the goal to lead all club members to discover the cousin sport: XC skiing on snow, and to participate in La Transjurassienne. Since two years the club organizes a 106 km roller-ski event on a track created in the heart of Brittany. We interviewed François Camper who was one of its initiators. The first picture shows François Camper with bib 123 in the Transroller 2007.

Q. Why did you create a roller-ski club?
F.C.: It resulted from the insistence of my daughter Anne, who loves XC skiing and was unhappy with only one week of skiing per year. Very soon, a dozen of friends caught a passion for this funny sport on small wheels, although they had never skied on snow! Thus, we initiated tens and tens of young people to XC skiing (picture 2), while it was not possible for them to envisage long and expensive travels to the mountains.

Q.: Is it still XC skiing?
F.C.: Yes, of course, and we have solicited the guidance of certificated trainers. The techniques on snow and on rollers have many similarities. Especially in skating. And we didn’t wait long before we decided to participate in national roller-ski competitions: Cosnes-Sancerre (in the Loire Valley), the Transroller (La Transjurassienne’s roller-ski event), Les 3 Vallées (in Essonne near Paris), etc. That gave the occasion to meet friends from the mountain regions who were snow skiers. And we were able to show that our women can monopolize the first places!

Q.: And the 106 km Challenge?
F.C.: A few km from our place there was an ancient railway line, abandoned since many years and transformed in a “green track” reserved for biking and roller-skiing. It’s our preferred training ground. The track is located on both sides of the town of Ploërmel and has a total length of 53 km. The women of the club challenged the men to follow them on this green track on a two-way course totaling 106 km.
We invited some friends and right from the first edition it was a big success. No time-keeping but the challenge to test the limits of one’s endurance and finish these 106 km during the day: 58 km in the morning followed by a common picnic at noon and 48 km in the afternoon. Already in the first edition the challenge was met by many of us and we did it again this year.

Q.: But I understood that the call of the snow was too strong for you?
F.C.: Yes indeed, after my retirement I left Brittany and moved to the Jura. Now we live on the course of La Transjurassienne, at Chapelle des Bois. But I brought my roller-skis with me. And I invited all members of Breizh Ski-Roues to participate this winter in L’Envolée Nordique, a difficult 50 km XC ski race with two-man teams at Chapelle des Bois. Most of them reached the finish line, and that confirms that roller-skiing is a good training for snow skiing. And two of them even participated in La Transjurassienne: future Worldloppet Masters?

Hereafter is the description of the 2009 Breizh Ski-Roues Challenge by Boris Petroff:
The Challenge took place on May 17.  It rained cats and dogs the day before (French expression: it rained like a pissing cow) and it was very windy. That pushed a certain number of participants to abstain, because they didn’t feel safe on humid roads that were in addition covered by leaves. On the morning of the race we had a fine drizzle when only some twenty competitors started in front of the former Ploërmel railway station (picture 3). Fortunately they were soon rewarded by the sun that dried up the track. I had planned to take it easy after a muscular tear caught a few days earlier when running, but step by step I was overwhelmed by the challenge and I imagined I was skiing on some Worldloppet track (picture 4). My final time after 106 km was 5h 38 min. The total distance was covered by 14 competitors, several of them from the Paris region or Burgundy. François Camper pulled out after reaching the magic number 76 km - the distance of La Transjurassienne!
Info on Breizh Ski-Roues can be found at http://pagesperso-orange.fr/breizh.ski-roues/

Assiduous Aussies

April 28, 2010

Margaret Hayes and Bruce Wharrie from Jindabyne, Snowy Mountains, Australia, spent the whole 2009 winter (inhabitants of the northern Hemisphere tend to be north-centric: I meant the nordic winter; for Marg and Bruce it was the summer) in Europe and participated in Worldloppet races in ten countries. When looking at the pictures, you may remember having seen them somewhere. The reporter (Hannes Larsson, FRA) met them in at least six races and appreciated their happy state of mind and their humor. At the bottom of a climb that required a couple of minutes of line-up, everybody heard Bruce’s comment: “Take your ticket”! Marg is terribly competition-minded; she seems to be telling herself at every step or pole push: faster! faster! In Finnish that is called sisu and in Italian grinta, in other languages we need a circumlocution like: combining will-power, force, energy and perseverance.
Marg’s and Bruce’s plan was to ski 14 WL races and to obtain their second and third Master titles. Let’s first present this sympathetic couple.
Bruce was born in Melbourne in 1960, Marg in Sydney in 1962. How on the earth did they become acquainted with XC skiing, since most Australians have never seen snow? They explain: “Yes, we learnt to ski only in our twenties, not at the same time as we learnt walking, like the happy skiers in Nordic countries. Maybe that is the reason that pushed us to compensate for the lost time by accelerating our skiing career. We met on the snow during the Australian Ski Touring Leadership Course in 1990. We then worked as ski tour guides and XC ski instructors. Bruce was also the Nordic Director of the Australian Professional ski instructors for five years, including the production of an instructor manual. Marg has been a course leader and assessor for many Australian Nordic Instructor courses and exams. Nowadays Marg is a school principal for children 5-12 years old. Bruce is a Town Planner assisting property developers with legal and environmental requirements.”
Participating in the Australian WL race Kangaroo Hoppet, they were exposed to the ultimate challenge, the WL Master. Commencing their overseas collection in 1997, they were both eventually awarded their first Gold Master in 2004, after three overseas trips.
For the 2009 tour, there was a big problem of obtaining a leave from work. Much negotiation was needed: “Marg’s school principal position was temporarily filled after much organizing trying to find the appropriate replacement. Bruce had to threaten his employer with resignation so he could gain some unprecedented leave without pay. Luckily it all worked out and then we could start the extensive and meticulous planning and booking of races and accommodations.”
This is Marg’s and Bruce’s description of their big tour:
“We flew out of Sydney on New Year’s Eve in a hot 36 degrees. Our first destination was Prague, during the first few days it was -10 degrees or colder. It took quite a bit of getting used to chilly conditions as we explored the wonderful old city of Prague. Off to Bedrichov for a week’s skiing. In the first event, the 50 km Jizerská Padesátka, we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day as we skied over the quite hilly course in perfect snow conditions. Our next destination was Lienz. Our challenge there was to ski the 42 km classic race in Obertilliach on Saturday, followed by the 60 km skate on Sunday. Previously we had never attempted to ski two marathons on consecutive days. It worked out perfectly, and we repeated the feat in Germany, France and Finland.”
“A short train and bus trip took us to Cavalese for the Marcialonga, where the whole valley seems to stop and crowd along the entire 70 km course, with the Dolomite mountains towering overhead. After that, in Oberammergau we had a 50 km skate race on Saturday and a 50 km classic race on Sunday. Snow conditions were tricky making the waxing difficult and skiing slow. From Oberammergau we caught 5 or 6 different trains to reach Les Rousses where we stayed in a delightful apartment. The owners really looked after us: they met us at the station in La Cure and drove us later to Morez for the bib pickup. Again we had a double event at La Transjurassienne: 50 km CT on Saturday and 54 km FT on Sunday. On Saturday it snowed most of the day with temperatures around zero, making waxing very tricky because in some areas the grip disappeared and a moment later the skis were “balling-up”, as we say in Australia. The FT race on Sunday was paradoxically slower than the CT race the day before because of fresh snow and bad glide. But we persisted and managed to complete both races. The owners of the apartment gave us the ultimate gift: the Woldloppet Jubilee Book, just as Marg was dreaming of buying one back home in Australia."

“After a train ride, two flights and a 4-hour bus journey we arrived in Otepää for the 63 km Tartu Maraton. Conditions were perfect on a pretty course through the rolling Estonian countryside. The Estonian Prime Minister even participated in the race. A cruise across the Baltic Sea brought us to Finland for another weekend of the 50 km Finlandia CT race, followed by the 50 km FT race. The race course was through pine forested areas and across a frozen lake with the last 5 km of challenging ups and downs before finishing in the Lahti ski stadium under the towering ski jumps. An overnight cruise to Stockholm was pure luxury with huge gourmet dinner and breakfast buffets, great carbo loading for the 90 km Vasaloppet. I only knew the race had started when the skiers in front of me had begun moving forward, very slowly. After just 1 km there is a 2 km hill with a bottleneck. I looked at my watch after 1 hour and had only skied some 3 km, I still had 87 km to go! Understandably, I was absolutely ecstatic when crossing the finish line after 8 hours 13 minutes.”
“Szklarska Poreba was our next stop for the new race of WL, Bieg Piastow. Conditions were wet and the visibility poor in this 47 km CT race. A bonus was meeting the wonderful Polish people who were excited when we said we were from Australia as they all knew our highest mountain Mt Kosciuszko was named after a Polish patriot. After Poland we decided to skip the Engadin Ski Marathon that we had completed several times in previous years, and spent a wonderful week in the Norwegian high mountains. We were fortunate with the sunny conditions in the last race of our Odyssey, the 54 km Birkebeinerrennet. It was amazing to see Norwegians lining the race course and having their BBQ, music boom boxes and picnics while cheering the 14000 skiers.”
“We celebrated as we had successfully skied 14 WL races and thus completed our second and third Gold Master titles. We were happy to be home again, but our thoughts returned to the wonderful races. Our feeling was that we had achieved an incredible feat, but any enthusiastic, persistent, fit skier can do the same. It will probably take two years before we can again make such a long trip. Our next dream is a trip to Japan (we absolutely need the Sapporo Ski Marathon to become Global WL Skiers), Canada, USA and Europe. That will probably happen in 2011, and we will gain our fourth and start our fifth Master. Marg says that she wants to still be doing WL races at the age of Hannes, an inspiration to us and many others!”
In one of the attached pictures Bruce demonstrates his force in Dolomitenlauf’s Nikolsdorf climb; another picture shows the trekking in Norway.

Birkebeinerrennet 2010

April 18, 2010

Birkebeinerrennet is a hard race. Most people doing it for the first time, think that 53 km can't be too bad compared to several other Worldloppet races that are longer. But you start at an elevation of 280m and climb to an elevation of 900m! At that point you have some exhilarating downhills and loose 250m and then you have to climb back up. This is followed by the only somewhat flat part for 7 km before you are again hurled down steep downhills into the Olympic Ski Stadium in Lillehammer. The waxing is rarely simple, in addition to the usual warming during the day you have the temperature change due to the different elevations.

This year was not an easy year. Birkebeinerrennet has a strange wave start arrangement. The first start was at 7 am when all men over 65 and all women over 60 started. (Norway like most Scandinavian countries don't practice equality between sexes). This is followed by the Elite that starts at 8 am. After that there are a large number of waves leaving with the last start being at 10:20 am. It was a great advantage to start early since it was rapidly getting warmer. If you had an early start, then you had icy and fast tracks for a good part of the race. However, in the late morning the tracks turned into mush and the glide was as terrible as was the grip. I assume that some skiers found a magic formula for waxing but it can't have been many. The official wax recommendations were not more useful than in previous years.

Over 15000 skiers were signed up for the race. The skiers starting later in the field were suffering from the warmer weather but there were no bad bottlenecks thanks to the very spread out start field. However, in spite of the many tracks they didn't hold up due to the warming snow. This is probably an unavoidable problem in a classic race with this many skiers unless the weather stays cold.

These are the results of all the IAWLS members that participated. It seems that we have more Swedes than Norwegians from IAWLS doing this race......

Engadin Skimarathon  2010

April 11, 2010

The weather was close to perfect.  Although the temperature in the morning was quite low (-12°C in Maloja), it was going up quickly in the rising sun. Snow conditions were good although the speed was far from excellent. Such is the nature of the spring snow. Sometimes it gives you a perfect glide or can be “blunt” the other day.
With the participation of Dario Cologna the gold Olympic champion, the elite guaranteed the highest sport level.  In spite of that, the race was one of the slowest in the last decade with winner’s time 1:36:58.
The organization of the race was traditionally very good. Front waves were less crowded than in past years thanks to the introduction of Elite C group that helped to decrease the number of skiers per wave. Back start groups were a bit tight with few bottlenecks on the course which suggests that organizers should continue to re-arrange the start dividing it into smaller waves.
The overall impression remains  very good and Engadin Skimarathon is certainly one of the most enjoyable events in the WL series.
The total number of finishers was 10361, 9282 in the long race and 1079 in the half marathon which makes ESM the 3rd biggest Worldloppet race.

Some results of IAWLS members:

Vasaloppet 2010

March 28, 2010

This was the year of many records. With all the races that were offered during the week there was a total of 54000 skiers starting, although as we will see below, some skiers started more than once.

Dalarna (and probably all of Sweden) had more snow then they had seen during the last 20 years. And it was cold all week with lows below -20°C every day. However, on Vasaloppet Sunday the temperature was a pleasant -8°C to -3°C.

One of the records that was set was an embarassment to the arranger: the time to go by bus from Mora to Sälen on Sunday morning before the start. The new record is 3 hours and 15 minutes! And for the first time in the long Vasaloppet story, several hundred skiers arrived in Sälen 10 or 15 minutes after the start. And it was not because they slept in but because of the traffic bottle neck the last 5 km before Sälen.

I was in the bus before 5 o'clock in Mora but arrived after 8 o'clock in Sälen. In spite of being seeded for the fifth wave, I had to start after 14000 skiers. An unforgettable experience but rather nice.

Vasaloppet is always the same magic moment for a long distance cross country skier.It is a pleasure to ski with old men who have completed 40 or 50 Vasalopp. And very young boys and girls (the day before) on the Vasa tracks with a bib…..

Some other skier “definitively” preferred the Öppet Spår: “A most enjoyable alternative to the Sunday race … Bottlenecks  : NONE!!!!!  Food  : Well manned by helpful, enthusiastic, fun people. Plenty of drink choices, the buns......well, they are a tradition!!.”

Some results of IAWLS' members.

Öppet Spår:

Vasaloppet:

But the King, sorry, the Queen of the Vasaloppet 2010 is one of the women members from IAWLS:
Carina Hammarstrand.

Within a week she skied:

Sunday Öppet spår in 7h23
Monday Öppet spår in 7h26
HalvVasan in 3h35
SkateVasan in 3h20
TjejVasan in 2h19
KortVasan in 2h20
StafettVasan in 7h58

and Vasaloppet in 7h52

8 Vasa in 8 days !!!! And every race, even the last one, in less than 8 hours.
Chapeau bas.

Race evaluation

January 27, 2009

We are introducing a new tool that should facilitate the way you express your comments and opinions about Worldloppet races. It is a comprehensive questionnaire covering all aspects of races that are of our interest. If you want to criticize, praise or just comment any aspect of the race please fill in the appropriate box and submit it. You do not have to fill in all the boxes, just the item that is of your interest. At the end of the season we shall compile all the remarks and send a letter to race organizers passing on your opinions. Your comments will be of great value to us. Look for the Race Evaluation link at the left of the page.

Communicate

You can write to the Executive Committee, iawls@worldloppetskier.com . All questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. The Executive Committee can read e-mails in 12 languages: Czech, Danish, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. We have also main correspondents in Russia who can help us with the Russian language.

This page was last revised on May 23, 2010