Yesterday I took the train/ bus to Studen, SZ. After getting my skis hot waxed, I set off xc skiing for the first time in over a year. In fact it has been quite some years since I last did classic style, having been more focussed on skating style the last few seasons.
The first few hundred steps were rather unbalanced and slow. Rather than cross country skiing I think it was more like walking on skis. The kick and glide was not really present. As time went on I started to get the hang of it a little more, but I still did not get to the point where I was transferring 100% of my weight from one leg onto the other. This is something that I will have to practise when I arrive in Finland and something that I will have to learn to master quickly. With the fact that I am leaving to St Petersburg next Thursday there is no further opportunity for me to practise before the Border to Border event.
Yesterday I covered 15km in 2 and a bit hours, and today a few of my muscles are aching a bit as a result. It made me realise that 60km a day is going to be a serious initiation into the classic xc skiing world. At this point I am really not sure whether I am capable of those kinds of distances day after day, but I guess we will see soon enough. There is always the bus as a last resort.
I will be taking a GoPro Hero 3 action cam with me on the trip, so you will be able to share in the joys and pains of the Finnish xc ski experience upon my return.
