I made it! (in9h 2min)

I'll write a longer race report in the next couple of days, but I had some photos I wanted put up here straight away.

Both Martin and I managed to finish the Vasaloppet yesterday. 90 very hard kilometers on cross-country skis. The weather was described as "one of the worst for the Vasalopp race in history", and today we certainly are aware of that, with muscles aching badly.

With the circumstances we are very happy to just finish the race. I finished the race in 9 hours and 2 minutes and Martin in 10 hours 18 minutes. Here is a photo just after I passed the finish line.

The Vasaloppet is a great Swedish tradition. The story says that it was the Swedish to-be king Gustav Vasa who was up in Dalarna (Swedish county) and tried to gather support to throw out the Danes that ruled Sweden at the time. He came to Mora but was turned away. When he had left the people in Mora changed their mind. They sent out their two fastest skiers to catch Vasa. In the end they caught up with him in Salen and from there he went on to throw out the Danes and become King of Sweden. The race traces the 90km between Mora and Salen.

Thank you very much for all of you who sent text messages during the race. I heard the messages beeping when they came through and it surely helped with motivation and to keep pushing harder!

You can see my progress report over the race here:
Click here for Joakim's race report

and Martin's here:
Click here for Martin's race report

On our way home we stayed on Malugn, a small, beautiful village not too far from where Vasaloppet finish in the town of Mora. The stream along the village was absolutely stunning and as you can see we were two very happy guys having finished the race with such deep tradition in the Swedish history.