Today we headed up the road for 13 km to the pass for a classic ski. A big part of the drive is 18% grade. It sure would be a tough bike ride up and a crazy downhill. Once again it was a clear sunny day with a wind of 2 m/s. We met a fellow Canadian from Canmore who was also here for the Marcialonga. After our lovely ski we had a traditional ham and cheese panini at the bar.
After skiing we went to pick up our race kits for the Marcialonga. The bib pick up and the finish are both in Cavalese. Here is a picture of the finish area- notice that there is absolutely no snow. They will truck man-made snow in by the dump truck full through the whole town! They call it snow farming and actually the whole course of 70 km is on an artificial snow track!
Once we were all set we headed to Nones’ Intersport ski shop to buy some red wax, klister and boot dryers. As soon as we walked in we were greeted by an older gentleman all dressed in ski clothes standing in front of his own wall of fame.
As it turns out his name is Franco Nones and he won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble. He was the first non-Scandinavian and non-Soviet/Russian male to win an Winter Olympic Gold medal in cross-country skiing. I showed him our bag of wax that we bought and he said “vitamins”!! Not sure what he meant by that.
Ross and the boys waxed skis so that we could test them tomorrow on the track at the stadium in Tesero. I walked to the Hotel Maria to work on my blog and to listen in on the Norwegians discuss their secrets at the bar.
The excitement and nervousness is building! It’s going to be very warm on race day so will it be skins or wax skis?? We’ll decide tomorrow.
A Nordic Skiing World Loppet Tour 