############# Vasaloppet-94 ################
6 March, 1994

I finally attended Vasaloppet ski race (90 km).  It is hold first Sunday every year at the central part of Sweden.  The origin of the race is traced back to several hundred years ago when the Swedish king skied the same course with only one ski-stick (at that time, people used only one stick), and modern race started 1922.  Now it gathers 12000-15000 attendants (this is physically maximum number).  Certainly, this is world's oldest, longest and largest ski competition in classic style.  Normally, the first-time attendants just try to finish the entire course within 12 hour (official check-in time).
The toughest part for me was, however, the bus trip from Mora (Vasaloppet goal) to Kiruna.  We left Mora at 7:15 am Monday morning, and arrived at Kiruna 2:15 am (19 hours).  This means that I can no get enough sleep Sunday night (because I have to get up 6 am on Monday) and Monday night.  I could not get enough sleep on Saturday night either because I had to get up 3 am in the Sunday morning to get the bus to the start point.  I caught cold just because of this, not because of the race.
For the race itself, it took me 9:43:58 to complete it, but I should be satisfied with this slow time (average was 7-8 hours) because of relatively bad condition.  
First, it was very warm (temperature = +4C).  It was extremely tough work go forward on the flat places, and it was impossible to climb uphills without help of "extremely-high temperature" ski wax, which only few people bought up.  What I had was valid up to +2C, but it did not work at all.  So, I seeked "waxing stands" where I can borough right wax.  Then, I spent more than 1 hour just for waxing during the race.  Including the slow down due to slippiness, I am sure that I lost more than 2 hours just because of +4C temperature.  In fact, after 4 PM when the temperature went down to +2C or +1C, I gained speed (nearly twice as fast as daytime) even though I should have been considerably tired.  So, the last 20 km was the best part of the race.
Second factor was "traffic jam" of skiers.  Think about the cloud with 13000 people.  Ski required much more space than a running between persons.  So, first several km was slower than walking, and it took me 1 hour to go 5 km.  The "traffic jam" was thus heavy.  After several km of heavy traffic jam, light traffic jam continued another 10 km.  I probably lost nearly 1 hour just because of this "traffic jam."  The huge number of attendants also means that the ski-track is destroyed or modified in many places.  So, I could not trust the track especially on down hills, and I was obliged to speed down for safety.
I used old-fashioned heavy ski + three-hole binder, which no other attendant used.  Everybody else used much better ski, half-weight of mine, and much narrower and lighter shoes+binder.  Since my binder is wider than the width of ski track, I felt strong friction all the way.  Well, this is not a big matter for me at all.  I had enough power all the way anyway. 
Last problem was the rucksack that I carried with me.  I found only three more participants carried rucksack.  Everybody else used just pochet.  Rucksack has an advantage, i.e., I can bring with me extra clothes, socks, and food, etc.  Since it was not so heavy, carrying a rucksack is no obstacle for me.  However, I brought wrong rucksack which is so stiff that it rubbed me at my shoulder.  This was a heavy pain all the way.  I still feel pain now one week after the race.
There were many foreign skiers from Germany, Italy etc.  (I should not count Nordic countries as "foreign"), but not so many Japanese skiers.  I have heard that there was only 6 skiers from Japan and I met three of them before and after the race (not during the race).
According to name list, more than 1000 female attended.  During the race, I found that even 15-16 years old girls (it seems to me so) were completing without trouble.  There was even one Japanese lady in the list, but I did not see her.  Probably, she started and finished much before me.

Yama


############# Kebnekaise-97 ################
11-13 July, 1997

Kiruna is now really nice weather.  Say, best summer in 7 years of my stay.  Unfortunately I cannot take vacation now because I have to take care of summer student job (oh, what a stupid planning!).  So, I spent only weekend to enjoy this weather, leaving Friday evening (I left office 3 pm to catch up the last buss at 4 pm) and coming back Sunday evening (last buss from the mountain was 3 pm).  I walked 110 km or so on the mountain trail (mostly on the valley) including the Swedish highest mountain (2117 m).  There are so much slow left on the trail.  Since this is the most famous trail in Scandinavia, most of the hikers are from south (even Austria and Germany). 

     Kungsleden (Royal Road)
  Friday   KL 17-20: Nikkaluokta-Kebnekaise (19 km)
  Saturday KL  6-22: Kebnekaise-Top(2117m)-S"alka-Tj"aktja-Alesjaure (55-60 km)
  Sunday   KL  9-15: Alesjaure-Abisko (35-37 km)   

* "Kungsleden" is total 600 km wild mountain trail in Sweden, access from ordinary road is only once every 100-200 km.  Yet, half of the "Kungsleden" hikers are females.
* Kebnekaise--S"alka is a wilderness with very bare pathway.
* I took a longer route (so-called west path) to the top of Kebnekaise, which took me nearly 4 hours.
* Tj"aktja pass was 5 m deep snow, and it was melting down.  Sometimes I had to cross 70 cm icy-water (oh!).  
* Only Nikkaluokta-Kebnekaise and Abisko-Abiskojaure were no snow on the track.

############# IAGA-97 ################
Having a lot of Japanese scientists in Sweden is a problem because I am the only one Japanese in my field in Europe.  For example I was obliged to open a mobil-phone account for my Japanese colleague who has to remote-control his computers in Japan.  He will keep the phone all the time until next year (minimum contract period is one year) and will reuse it whenever he visits Europe.  The invoice comes to me, and he re-pays all the cost afterward.  It's a simple extra work for me without any benefits (well probably he can provide scientific data quicker than he gives to other people).  This is the real volunteer, isn't it?  

############# EXCEL trouble ################
We have now perfect cloud (i.e., scientifically very interesting cloud) over the sky.  Cloud is one good thing in Kiruna: its always beautiful with colours and/or structures.  

The stupid Microsoft-software (I was obliged to use it) completely upset my computer yesterday, and I had to ask all the people around for help.  This made me crazy.  (Well, Microsoft always makes me angry.)  Recent Microsoft programs are very bad simply because it's a big company: all good programmers are now independent and the company hires only bad programmers.  But this applies to the scientist too.  All good scientists go to a new pioneering field, and level of the scientists on one field decays gradually decade by decade.  Space Physics is the typical one because it suddenly attracted the first-quality of scientists 30 years ago.  

Another problem comes from the statistic theory: error increases with square-root (if error is 1 when total number is 10, error will be 10 when total number is 1000).  "Genius" of a scientific/work field is recognized as the error, so the genius people will be ignored from the average member if the total number exceeds certain number.  This rule applies to any institution and any field.