Wednesday 15 February 2012

Heading north

I'm finally in departures ready to head North again. The inaugural Rovaniemi 150 starts on Saturday but it will be nice to have a few days in Lapland to get ready. There are 17 racers: 10 runners, 5 cyclists and one tandem. The first year of any race is always going to be difficult. No-one really knows what to expect. In winter races the terrain makes a huge difference so, for me, this has been the biggest question mark. That was until I got an update on the weather.

"About the track conditions I have to inform you that after two weeks with low temperatures (-30ºC...), the last three days the weather have been so mild and "warm"... only -4ºC or even less. Yesterday we had -2ºC. Was a windy day, the wind was really warm and snow was falling and add 3 to 4 centimetres, not much but the wind cover some tracks untill the point thatit dissapear...

Today we open again the track in some areas, there was some overflow in lakes and river, in some part around 40 centimeters water... For next days we expect more cold temperatures... The tracks are with some soft snow now."

I had assumed that a race inside the Arctic circle would have ensured low temperatures! These conditions are quite annoying- i had been hoping for pristine super cold weather. Not only because those conditions are fun but it does this make it faster for the bikes and decreases some risks- getting wet hugely increases the risk of frost bite. It also makes it very hard to chose what to wear. Consequently I only narrowly avoided excess baggage fees. Thanks to Endura for getting me a few pieces of clothing out at really short notice. Hopefully I'm covered for all eventualities now. I'll try and get some pictures up once I get to Finland. Now, where to find a reasonable coffee???

Posted via email from shaggy's posterous