Page 45 - Сахалину с любовью : литературный сборник

Of old cheese and broken poles

The 11th of March 2007, the day of the
International Cross Country Ski Marathon. Until this day
no one seemed to know if this yearly event was going
through. Rumour had it, that theusual route from Lesnoye
to Yuzhno via the Chekhov Pass proved to be unsafe.
Heavy speculations about the reasons for the decision to
hold the marathon in Troitskoye could be overheard
among the fanatic X-country skiers. Maybe because of a
landslide, not enough snow, the ice on the rivers would be
too thin to cross them, etcetera. At least as many
speculations were heard about the distance. One said there
were going to be two rounds of 12,5 kms, plus an extra
round of 5 kms, but it might also be one long circle of 25,
30, 35 of 38 kms. Nobody knew. Even Dima, Arthur, Igor
and Alexei, our dedicated ski instructors, did not know
much about it. Like one of my Russian friends once said:
even God does not know, so why bother?
I tried to find out more information at the Santa x-
country ski clubhouse, at Spartak stadium and at several
ski sport stores in town. The general conclusion was that
it might be one long circuit of probably 38 kms. You’ll
better be prepared. The closer to the date we all got a bit
nervous but we didn’t want to show it to each other.
Finally the day arrived. The Weather Gods worked hard
to make sure we had a real Sakhalin winter atmosphere:
hard wind and snow! The Brass-band, the organizing
committee and the crowd tried hard to let us forget our
worries about the monstrous trip ahead. If I counted well
we were with 23 brave participants from Sakhalin
Energy. The professional Russian free style cracks
jumped away at the start. Then a big group of less

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