Race Report: Marcialonga

Done! Mission accomplished!!!

Marcialonga translates as “long march” and it was just that for me today. It’s in the Dolomites and starts from Moena. There are two versions: 70km and 45km. I did the shorter one, thank goodness. It’s a classic ski race, which translates in cross country skiing as the one that uses those two tracks in the snow (the other style of XC skiing is skating, which is a bit like roller skating).

Since I live in Italy now, it seemed right to try this race. I signed up last year and booked an apartment. Well, turned out the apartment is right next to the race start. Very handy this morning!

My wave didn’t start until almost 9am, so I had plenty of time to watch earlier racers. I got to see the elite women power up a hill, all in a line, double-poling. They made it look easy, and fluid! A nice start to the day. Later I watched the first waves of men fight their way uphill.

We dropped our clothing bags off in trucks and then made our way to the start pens. They checked my number off on a list. All good. This race tends to have 7,500-7,900 people. My pen held maybe 500 skiers.

Finally they sent us out. For each of us, the race began when our chip (built into our race bibs) went over the start line.

And I’m off! Uphill. That is, uphill for 18km (~11 miles), some of it very steep. Here’s the first big climb: it’s called “leg buster” and goes up for half a kilometer.

The race course goes up a valley and then turns around and comes back down. The day was overcast, which kept me from overheating most of the time. I skied some sections without gloves to keep the sweat down.

There was a feeding station after 10km, and a few (very few) later. It’s not like America with poles of pretzels, chips, energy bars, M&Ms, bananas, boiled potatoes, salt pills, etc. Here in Europe is much simpler: squares of sugar, chunks of chocolate, and raisins. Fortunately I brought some of my own race snacks. To drink they had warm energy drink and warm sweet tea, which hit the spot.

After the first 18km, the rest was pretty much downhill. But that 18km was tough. I was very slow.

The turnaround is in the town of Canazei and skiers make a small loop around the main square. As I approached, I knew I was close to the cutoff time of 12:30. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was past it but not by much. I was very happy when the official waved me through. I was one of the last people through. Yikes!

As I headed down the valley, I was pleased, but already my feet and legs hurt from the unstable course. Who cared? I was on my way to the finish. Fewer skiers still on the trails, but enough for me not to feel I was alone, but not to feel crowded.

There were a few hills on the return. Here’s one, the “endless one.”

Oddly, on this race, I liked the uphills (they weren’t hard at my end of the pack because we could only step up slowly one behind the other) but disliked the downhills. In fact, right at the beginning when the trail zigs and zags up and down through the village of Moena, I joined a lot of other skiers and took my skis off and walked along a hillside rather than deal with the steep down and up on the trail. Felt strange.

The weather was perfect on the descent. Still overcast but a little warmer so I stayed warm enough. But 27km is still a long way, even if most of it tilts down. I did okay, passing quite a few people, which cheered me. I had good energy until the last 10km when I got cold and had to stop to put my jacket on because I wasn’t moving hard enough.

The snow was so slippery and unstable that I double-poled most of the race. I figure I double-poled about 25-30km. Yikes.

The last kilometer through the town of Predazzo was very challenging. There was snow piled up over a straight street leading to the church at the center of town. There were still people on the side of the route clapping us on and calling out encouragingly “Brava” and “Forza!” I smiled, but I was ready to be done and I still had to keep going. Sigh. I passed under the banner just before 4pm, so I was out on my skis for 7 hours (6:50 to be precise).

Once I was done, there was a finisher’s medal and a plate of pasta. We’re in Italy!

Then a bus home and a video chat with my niece Perry and her daughter Alice. A lovely transition back to real life. 🙂