World Loppet skiing

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It has taken me years to do a World Loppet ski marathon since becoming an M60 and starting this blog. In 2020 I travelled to Finland to do the Finlandia-hiito but the race was cancelled for lack of snow! We had to head a long way north to Vuokatti to find good skiing.

Then there were races cancelled because of Covid, and races that were on, but border closures meant I couldn't compete. Finally, I made it to the Hoppet at Falls Creek. An arthritic knee meant that I had done no running, bike riding or skiing in the 6 months before we travelled down to Victoria so my time was nowhere near a PB. 2hrs 43 mins for the 39km, shortened from the full marathon distance by lack of snow on one loop of the course. Unfortunately, there was no race photographer so I have included 2 pics from training skis in the days before the race. One shows Ana with Mt Buffalo centre far horizon. The other shows me and mid-kid on a different day near Mt Nelse with Rocky Valley pond in the background. Got an arthritic knee or 2? Try XC skiing.


 

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