Photo: www.langd.se
Today is the day of Vasaloppet. Each year first Sunday of March is Vasaloppet day. Yep 90 km skiing in classical style. Crazy people. And there are thousands of them! Today around 13 600 participants came to the start.
National Swedish TV channel SVT sends direct all the race. We woke up and watched it from 8 a.m. The SVT had reporters in the start area, racing ones (yes, yes, they did ski quite fast with the leading group for a while, some did ski all the race), reporters in the intermediate points with hot blueberry soup and of course in the finish. Vasaloppet is a very important event in Sweden, so it is not strange that so much effort is put to entertain the TV watchers or let's say those who did not dare to ski themselves :)
My favorite part of the race is the start. Yes, I have to wake up early on a Sunday morning, but it is worth. The view how thousands of people try to start moving, get stuck in a jam as soon as the first uphill begins is impressive. The organizers try various solutions how to speed up the start of those standing not in the front lines, but still it takes time for people in the back to start moving. It can take not seconds, but minutes.
Photo: www.langd.se
National Swedish TV channel SVT sends direct all the race. We woke up and watched it from 8 a.m. The SVT had reporters in the start area, racing ones (yes, yes, they did ski quite fast with the leading group for a while, some did ski all the race), reporters in the intermediate points with hot blueberry soup and of course in the finish. Vasaloppet is a very important event in Sweden, so it is not strange that so much effort is put to entertain the TV watchers or let's say those who did not dare to ski themselves :)
My favorite part of the race is the start. Yes, I have to wake up early on a Sunday morning, but it is worth. The view how thousands of people try to start moving, get stuck in a jam as soon as the first uphill begins is impressive. The organizers try various solutions how to speed up the start of those standing not in the front lines, but still it takes time for people in the back to start moving. It can take not seconds, but minutes.
Photo: www.langd.se
Then it gets a bit boring to watch how a few strong elite skiers are racing for more than 4 hours, but I keep watching for the funny interviews with skiers racing not for a result, but just for fun.
Many Swedes think that Vasaloppet is something they have to do at least one in a lifetime. Patrik did it. And want to do it again. And he thinks I should do that as well. Well.... we'll see... Maybe... Someday...
As Vasaloppet was so popular through the years, so the organizes developed it to the whole Vasaloppet week with some shorter events like Ladies Vasa, Half Vasa, Open Vasa etc.
During Vasaloppet week around 40 000 competitors drink:
46,000 liters of blueberry soup
40,000 liters of sports drinks
6,300 liters of coffee
12,000 liters of bouillon – all served in 900,000 cups.
They also eat:
800 liters of whole meal gruel
109,500 Vasaloppet sweet rolls
Almost 60,000 race numbers, the equivalent of enough fabric to cover two soccer fields, as well as 450,000 meters of sewing thread, are also used for the race.
Many Swedes think that Vasaloppet is something they have to do at least one in a lifetime. Patrik did it. And want to do it again. And he thinks I should do that as well. Well.... we'll see... Maybe... Someday...
As Vasaloppet was so popular through the years, so the organizes developed it to the whole Vasaloppet week with some shorter events like Ladies Vasa, Half Vasa, Open Vasa etc.
During Vasaloppet week around 40 000 competitors drink:
46,000 liters of blueberry soup
40,000 liters of sports drinks
6,300 liters of coffee
12,000 liters of bouillon – all served in 900,000 cups.
They also eat:
800 liters of whole meal gruel
109,500 Vasaloppet sweet rolls
Almost 60,000 race numbers, the equivalent of enough fabric to cover two soccer fields, as well as 450,000 meters of sewing thread, are also used for the race.
During the race each person that take part in it looses from 2 to 5 kg of weight. In average that makes 3,6 kg lost weight of each competitor. That means that roughly 500 persons disappear in the tracks each year.
So if you want to go fast in weight, just ski this famous 90 kilometers race between Sälen and Mora. The result is guaranteed :)
During the race one competitor produces around 1 kilowatt energy, so during the main Vasaloppet race around 14 000 kilowatts of energy are produced, which is enough for a quite big house electricity consumption during 1 year.
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