Engadiner Marathon

Sunday March 14 was the day of the Engadiner cross-country ski marathon. It has been a yearly event since 1969 and my racing friends tell me that it is one of the largest races. This year 11,000 skiers competed. Since my last posting my time has been framed by this event. During the week before the marathon the population of the valley just about doubles. The infrastructure for the race is astounding and everybody is involved at some level, from the Swiss army to Irene!

As I mentioned in my last posting, Buck arrived all the way from Grand Marais (MN) for the race. The day after his arrival we took the train to St. Moritz to pick up his bib. The Nordic center already was a hive of activity, with music, booths, waxing services, athletes milling around. On Friday his friend Tim, also from Grand Marais, joined us. Buck knew on which train he would arrive, and we took a beautiful walk up the Val Bever, at the end of which we hopped on that train - and indeed Tim was on it! He quickly settled in, ate a hearty snack and the two guys were off for a late afternoon ski outing - a mere 28 k! The next day Tim met up with Spanish racing friends and together they checked out one of the more challenging stretches of the course, between St. Moritz and Pontresina. Buck had decided that he would run the marathon for the enjoyment of it and therefore opted to ski with me rather than train for the next day. This is what real athletes are made off: they are in such good shape that they don't even need to do special training for a marathon. I am not an athlete.

So Buck and I headed to the start of the marathon at Maloja. While the marathon course goes straight through the middle of the frozen lakes in the upper Engadin, we took the more difficult but so much more interesting trails along the southern edge of the lakes. Lunch was at Isola, a town on the south shore of lake Sils with no road access. It feels like going back a couple of centuries. I gave up after some 10 k. My back was still bothering me (I ended up seeing a chiropractor on Monday) and we were skiing against a nasty headwind.

That night I fed my two athletes the required pasta. When I got up the next morning - race day - they were long gone, to be in Maloja with the other 10,998 skiers at the start time of 9:00am. Meanwhile I went to the Zuoz feeding post - at 9am.



It was a gorgeous but very cold morning. By 10 am the elite runners whizzed by: ahead of the group was Dario Cologna who had won the gold medal for the 15 k race at the Olympics (they had started 15 minutes before the other participants). After a short break the next group arrived - and for the next 4 hours it was an uninterrupted line of skiers. Those who made the race in a couple of hours didn't need any refreshments. But as their time increased and the sun got hotter, they arrived more and more tired, more and more hungry and dehydrated. The first ones would grab a cup on the fly, sometimes missing and splashing both themselves and me. The later it got, the more time the skiers were willing to take to refuel and hear a few words of encouragement. There were the aggressive ones, those who took the race very seriously. They were followed by the many who were just proud to be able to do it. After noon some arrived wearing costumes. All kinds of animals, Scots in kilts, Mexicans dragging a cactus, sexily-clad Italian women, Swiss guards... After 1pm the most moving racers arrived: teams where obviously a good skier was hanging back to encourage a weaker spouse or friend; those who were way behind but nevertheless had huge smiles on their faces and said thank you when given a drink. And last, but not least, the classic skiers, many of them very old, many of them running the race for the 30th or 40th time. And I was humbled by all of them - they all are heroes in my eyes!

By the time I met up with my athletes at my house (they both had done really well!) they were showered and all rested up, ready to go on a nice big walk, followed by a great meal in a restaurant. Tim left on Monday afternoon, after I took my guests to the ice cave at the Morteratsch Glacier. Buck had another two days. On one we skied together the 19km down to Zernez. By then everybody had gone home and we met only one other person on the trail. However, we did meet a chamois that crossed the trail just a few meters ahead of us. Then we were fortunate enough to be able to observe it for quite a while as it made its way up the forest. The following day, Buck's last full day, we hiked up Val Roseg, out of Pontresina. It took us forever because the valley was lousy with chamois and we spent much time spotting them, counting them, observing as they were grazing on the southern slope's patches of grass.

Buck left this afternoon, with the cold Tim has passed on to him. I am keeping my fingers crossed for not catching it as well.