Engadine Ski Marathon

On January 18, 2025, just over a year ago, I discovered the sport of cross-country skiing. For reasons that go well beyond skiing itself, that day was deeply special and transformative for me. Along the way, it also sparked a passion for a uniquely beautiful sport that stands apart from other endurance disciplines in the importance it places on technique.

In running, cycling, rowing, and swimming, athletes repeat essentially the same movement pattern for hours at a time. Cross-country skiing is different. The movements can change fundamentally depending on the terrain, snow conditions, and stage of the race. The seamless transitions between techniques and rhythms are what make the sport so captivating to watch and so immensely satisfying to practice.

More than any other endurance sport I have experienced, cross-country skiing feels like a constant conversation between the athlete and the environment. The terrain, the snow, and the conditions continuously shape the choices a skier makes. Mastering that interaction is a challenge that keeps drawing me back.

In fact, it captivated me so much that, less than a year after taking up the sport, I signed up for Switzerland’s most iconic long-distance cross-country ski race: the Engadine Ski Marathon.

What is cross-country skiing?

Of course, a single year of practicing this sport hardly qualifies me to answer that question definitively. Nevertheless, in the following I will attempt to put cross-country skiing into context and explain how I believe it can best be classified and characterized.

Skiing is, at its core, a means of transportation on snow. Skis act like flotation devices, helping you stay on top of the snow rather than sink into it. They offer two major advantages over traveling on foot: they prevent you from sinking deeply into soft snow, which would slow you down considerably, and they allow you to glide, preserving momentum and making movement far more efficient.

Compared with downhill skiing, which is designed primarily for descending slopes, and ski touring, which is best suited to mountainous terrain with long climbs and descents, cross-country skiing excels on flat and rolling terrain. On compact snow, it is the fastest way an unmotorized human can travel freely in a “Scandinavian” landscape.

Two major families of techniques are practiced in cross-country skiing: classic and skating. In classic skiing, the skis remain parallel and typically follow a set track. A grip zone beneath the ski creates enough friction to push against the snow while still allowing the ski to glide forward. This technique dates back to a time before machine-groomed trails, when following an existing track was the most efficient way to avoid plowing through deep snow.

Skating, by contrast, is generally only possible on groomed trails or, more rarely, on naturally compacted or refrozen snow. The skier pushes the skis outward in a rhythmic side-to-side motion, generating forward propulsion while maintaining glide. At the elite level, skiers in long-distance races routinely average speeds approaching 30 km/h (19 mph), while sprint finishes can exceed 50 km/h (31 mph).

The result is a sport that combines the endurance demands of distance running or cycling with a remarkable degree of technical complexity. Efficiency depends not only on fitness but also on choosing the right technique for the terrain and transitioning smoothly between different movement patterns as conditions change.

Skating techniques

What makes skate skiing so captivating to watch and so rewarding to practice are its different techniques. Unlike endurance sports such as running, swimming, rowing, or cycling, where essentially the same movement pattern is repeated for long periods, a proficient skate skier masters several fundamentally different movement patterns. A useful analogy is to think of them as the gears on a bicycle, each optimized for a different combination of speed and terrain.

The four main skating techniques are:

• Asymmetric skating (V1 or offset) – The lowest gear, best suited to steep climbs. This is often the first technique beginners acquire intuitively. The poles are planted simultaneously with every second skate, typically on the uphill side when traversing a slope.

• 1:1 skating (V2) – The second gear, commonly used on gentle climbs and during accelerations. The poles are planted with every skate, producing a powerful and highly rhythmic motion.

• 2:1 skating (V2 Alternate) – The third gear, best suited to flat terrain and gentle descents. The poles are used on every second skate, allowing the skier to maintain speed efficiently while reducing upper-body effort.

• Free skate – The highest gear. At sufficiently high speeds, the poles contribute little additional propulsion, and the skier simply skates without using them, relying entirely on leg power and momentum.

A skilled skier not only masters all of these techniques but also transitions seamlessly between them as the terrain changes. Watching elite skiers shift effortlessly from one “gear” to another is one of the most beautiful aspects of the sport. What appears effortless is, in reality, the product of thousands of hours spent refining technique and timing.

My training strategy

Sure, I had gone cross-country skiing a handful of times during the winter of 2025. But when I signed up for the race that autumn, I knew there was still a great deal of work ahead of me.

As a complete novice to the sport, I identified three key areas that would require focused training:

• Mastering the different skating techniques, especially understanding when to use each one and how to transition smoothly between them.

• Developing balance and confidence on the skis, to the point where I could fully exploit the glide and focus on technique rather than simply staying upright.

• Building cross-country-specific muscular endurance, particularly in the upper body. As a runner, I was accustomed to long aerobic efforts, but cross-country skiing places much greater demands on the arms, shoulders, and core.

In the following, I try to document my approach to improving each of these aspects along with a few tips that I was given and that seemed to help me improve my technique.

Mastering the different skating techniques

It takes a lot of watching, trying, and feeling. Coordinating the movements and learning to switch between them is quite challenging. There is no real shortcut to practicing this other than spending time on your own skis and repeatedly experimenting with the techniques.

What worked well for me was finding a loop and repeating the same sections each time, so I could practice the same transitions without having to think too far ahead. Once you develop a good feel for the movements, it also helps to ski with stronger skiers and observe when they use each technique.

Some of the key corrections I was given were:

• Push off onto the edge to the side, not backward.
• Keep the hands close together and execute a single powerful push all the way back, releasing the poles at the end of the stroke.
• Swing the hands forward in one smooth motion at the end of a stroke.

Developing balance and confidence on the skis

An interesting observation I made while watching cross-country skiing World Cup races was the following:

Good skaters almost always have only one ski in contact wih the ground at any given time.

Having long glide phases between each skate seems to be crucial for maintaining speed. Achieving this kind of long, efficient glide is quite challenging.

Keeping balance during these phases is difficult, and I believe it can only really be developed through extensive time on skis. Fortunately, I am already quite comfortable skiing on one ski in alpine skiing, which has helped me with balance.

Among other things, the following small tips have helped me improve my glide and stability:

• Lightly bump the heels of your boots together between each skate to ensure the center of mass is positioned over the gliding ski.
• Placing the ski more in line with the direction of travel, rather than pushing it too far outward.
• Orienting the hips in the direction of the skate first, to avoid twisting in the leg and catching an edge unintentionally.
• Training without poles—for example, using a breaststroke-like arm motion to focus entirely on balance and leg movement.

Building cross-country-specific muscular endurance

Long training sessions, with a gradual and steady build-up, have been key for me.

Some factors that I believe helped me train efficiently:

• Early morning sessions, when the trails are still quiet, there are few other skiers, and no distractions or pressure. It also feels more forgiving if you fall or struggle with technique, there is no sense of being watched.

• Continuous efforts, including deliberately practicing race-like fueling strategies such as taking gels while skiing. This is surprisingly difficult with cold hands and gloves, but important to make it automatic under race conditions.

• SkiErg sessions (e.g. weekly 3 × 3 minutes sessions at ~300 watts), which allow me to isolate upper-body endurance. To make it more specific, I often add a subtle weight shift from one foot to the other to better mimic the rhythm and balance demands of skating.

Training recap

Unfortunately, things did not go quite as planned. I hurt my wrist in end of November when I slipped with my bike in the early morning on my way to meet a friend at the gym on an icy curve. At first, it felt fine, then it got quite painful, such that the day after I needed to go see a doctor. On the X-ray, nothing suspicious showed up, so I continued doing most of the usual things, just wearing a brace to avoid painful movements.

However, when things did not seem to improve over Christmas, I decided to visit the doctor again, and on the MRI it was clearly visible that I suffered a fracture where a fragment of a wrist bone (triquetrum) has been pulled off and displaced by about 2 mm. Further, I was told I also have a bone bruising/stress-related swelling in the back part of another wrist bone (hamate) along with a nearby soft-tissue hematoma (localized bleeding/bruising) being present as well.

Despite that, I was not adviced to stop doing activities, and got to spend quite a few days on cross country skis during Christmas and when I spent a few days in Engadine in January. There I also had the opportunity to do some sections of the course of the Engadine Ski Marathon. Slip-ups got rarer and I started getting somewhat comfortable on the thin skis.

Eventually, I did five bigger solo training sessions specifically targetted towards the ski marathon, which shows quite a nice progression:

My Engadine Ski Marathon 2026

During the weeks in which the race took place, I was on my yearly military repetition course.

The day before the race, I quickly traveled from the military airbase to Zweisimmen, where I organized a cross-country skiing training session for my alpine skiing group together with the Nordic skiers of Skiclub Zweisimmen.

Immediately afterward, I stopped by my parents’ place for a delicious lunch and some help getting everything ready for the long train journey to the Engadin. Everything went smoothly, and I arrived around 9 p.m. in Silvaplana, where my girlfriend Nina and her family were staying the night before the race.

We got up early the next morning, had breakfast, and headed out into the cold morning air. The shuttle bus to the start line was quite memorable. The driver did not seem very experienced, and at one point nearly got stuck while reversing the articulated bus. He then ended up in a strange situation where it seemed like he had taken the wrong side of the race course and might not be able to cross back, as the road was already covered in snow. Nevertheless, he built up speed and pushed through the snow-covered section with a loud bump, narrowly missing one of the helpers who was in the process of picking up a dropped soda bottle. It was quite something.

Once we arrived at the start line, everything went according to plan. To my relief, the field spread out immediately, so there were no issues overtaking or navigating past slower skiers. The only surprise were the very icy conditions. For the first time ever, I would have wished for proper edges on my skis. These are conditions we rarely encounter where I usually ski, but I cannot complain, the compact track made for very fast skiing overall.

During the race, I was happy to see familiar faces from ski clubs near my hometown. I greeted some of them and had short conversations along the way.

While the sections across the large lakes went smoothly and felt almost effortless, I was caught off guard after about 15 km when the track narrowed as it entered the Stazerwald, and I suddenly found myself stuck in a long queue. At first, it felt uncomfortable to be held back in a race, but I soon relaxed and used the time to check my phone, clean my goggles, and exchange some banter with other competitors. After a few minutes, the queue began to thin, and things returned to normal.

I took my three gels, and shortly afterward reached the finish line in a time of 2:09:41. Relatively happy with the result, I collected my medal and grabbed a few snacks. In the first moments after the race, my throat felt quite irritated and I had to cough several times, which was rather painful. I suspect this was due to the cold, dry air during the two hours, as well as remnants of asthma that I still carry from childhood.

Conclusion and reflections

Cross-country skiing has become a major part of my life over the past year. Its flow and rhythm feel almost meditative, and the movement itself is among the most satisfying I have experienced, set in some of the most beautiful landscapes in Switzerland. I am deeply grateful for the many memorable moments I have been able to spend on skis.

I am also thankful for the kind and patient company I have had along the way. In particular, my girlfriend Nina, who introduced me to the sport, as well as her sisters Jana and Celia, who generously shared both their passion and their outstanding knowledge and skill.

Unfortunately, unless something changes drastically, the cross-country ski season will continue to get shorter and shorter over the next 50 years. Within the next 100 years, cross-country skiing on natural snow may no longer be possible close to places in Switzerland that are permanently inhabited. I am personally responsible for this and feel extremely guilty about it.

Looking ahead, my goal for next year is to break well under two hours at the Engadine Ski Marathon, conditions permitting and with a more favorable starting position. This will allow me to incorporate more intensive training, with a stronger focus on speed and efficiency on skis. I am especially looking forward to interval sessions and longer challenges, such as skiing 100 km in a single outing.

Oh, and did I mention that a beneficial side effect of the cross-country training was that it helped me secure the ski club championship title of Skiclub Zweisimmen at the end of March?