I frikkin’ h a t e skate skiing. I’m trying hard to pretend I don’t, I keep talking about these small improvements, but when it comes down to it, please put me out of my misery and shoot me if you ever see me stand on skate skis again.

I got up before sunrise today so I could make proper use of the crust after another cold night. I drove to Walles in Bruksvallarna and headed towards Össjödalen. They haven’t prepared the track for a while so it was very rough, and frozen as it was, I had a problem with it. My skis didn’t get hold so they kept gliding sideways with every kick (I guessing, because I don’t have the right technique so I don’t put enough pressure in each kick), which is manageable on level ground, but when the uphill started… my god. It’s not even a steep hill, just a very gentle one, but it was pure torture.

At the trail crossing, I went off trail. The crust has a little bit of soft snow on top which gave a bit better hold for my skis than the icy trail, but now the serious climb started. It wasn’t the longest or steepest hill I’ve ever done, but on the skate skis, it sure felt like it. It was nothing but hateful, needing to stop every 50 meters (or 25. Or 5.) to pause for a minute, then struggle up the next 50 meters. I was seriously considering of giving up and I hate giving up, but I hated even more being so completely worthless at skating. Then in the middle of my misery, I saw a nice looking birch. I stopped to take a picture, and somehow that helped – I needed to take my mind off the skiing and do something I actually can do. Quite incredibly, the skiing got easier after that. Granted, the hill was gentler after that point, but I also felt those muscles I mentioned yesterday, which signalled to me that I was doing it right. But in the next hill… I lost it again, and it was just as bad as it always was.

When I was having my morning coffee on the mountain, I tried to remember if there had been any point during this trip that I thought was fun and I had actually enjoyed. I came up empty – the coffee was the only good thing going on. It was just a stubborn struggle from start to finish and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why I put myself through it. While I was contemplating to burn the skis after I get home (which I won’t do, because I’m just borrowing them…), I saw a group of three women ski past my snow pit. Two women going effortlessly up the hill, and the third one some way behind, lagging because she had a problem with the hill. So I’m not the only who hasn’t mastered the uphill skate technique, and I’ve known all along that it’s perfectly normal that it takes time to learn it. But even when it’s normal, it doesn’t mean that I have to like it!

So now I’m sitting at home, and the feeling of misery is starting to fade away and even as I type these words, I’m wondering if the trip was really quite as awful as I make it sound. As much as I hate – or want to hate – skate skiing, I will probably do it again. How can I ever say no to the snow covered mountain and warm sunshine that even now are teasing me outside my window?