Orsa Grönklitt Ski Marathon 2020
The girls are waiting at the finish.
1500 skiers for at the start of Orsa Grönklitt Ski Marathon. Wow. That is 800 more than at Craft Ski Marathon one month prior. The weather in south Sweden has been catastrophic to a degree that I wouldn’t even call it Winter. With temperatures at the two digit °C there has been no seeding races at all in south Sweden. The natural snow border in fact has been running very markedly at Orsa Grönklitt and the North West of Dalarna County. For many who otherwise would do seeding races in the south this is one of the last chances before Vasaloppet to get seeded. It made a big impact on the event up here. It is fantastic that they managed to hold an event up here containing so many ambitious and snow-hungry cross country skiers.
The start felt like Vasaloppet. It took us like ten minutes to do the first kilometre. We tagged patiently along up the hill to the polar bears. Up there things started to feel a bit crazy. Downhill from here the track was faasssssst and people were skiing everywhere on the sides, in the middle and in the tracks. When I came down a girl in front of me going with less speed made it difficult to figure out what to do. I took the wrong decision and fell and broke a pole. My brain damage causes me to have a delayed sensory signal processing in the brain. If things happen too quickly I can’t process the visual impressions and I often react too late or get out of balance.
Luckily Søren Kobbernagel stood at the foot of the descent and he passed me one of Bo Jensen’s poles. It was an inch short but meant that I was still in the game. I spend at least 5-10 minutes if not more to make up for the set back in the beginning and I didn’t catch up with the people I started side by side with until halfway out the Kallbol mire. I had to struggle with skiing around and in between people on the entire first lap. But I felt I could have gone much faster. The worst part is I felt really good. Preparations over the last two weeks and in the beginning of the season have been the best I have done in my entire skiing career so far.
The glide on the skis was phenomenal. A big huge thanks to Filip at Längdcentrum Orsa Grönklitt for prepping them. I really felt that I could have done very well today if not for bad luck and my own stupidity. I went on Madshus Redline 2.0 double pole skis.
Anyways my official time 2:47:48 with a broken pole at the crossroads after the first downhill is okay I guess.
Now I turn my eyes on the Vasa45 and hope for better luck there. I already made one dream come true when at Craft Ski Marathon I seeded to gate 6 for Vasaloppet 2020. I do feel though that it is within my grasp to seed to gate 5. So now it is definitely Vasaloppet45 for me.
Irís, my oldest daughter, came running to greet me after I passed the finish line. The speaker had picked up that I had been interviewed and featured in an article in Vasalöparen so he spent a couple of minutes speaking about that and the struggle with diabetes and changing life style. Great! We need more attention to this. It is important that people learn that sports and diabetes are not antagonistic feats, be it type 1 or type 2 diabetes. You can do sports and even elite sports with both. Robin Bryntesson is a living example of this. He is already a legend within cross country skiing for his U23 sprint world champion title as a diabetic. His and Frida Linnérs work with promoting sports and diabetes through summer training camps for children as well as the diabetes podcast is equal in greatness.
It was cool to see quite a few Sockertoppen suits out in the track. Erica finished just after me and we had quite a few rendevouz during the course of the race. Nice to meetup at the finish line. 🙂
Hótigris 
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