March 30, 2008 (Fairbanks, Alaska) – Liz Stephen and Laura Valaas were having a restful Saturday afternoon in advance of Sunday’s tough 30km national championship marathon ski race. Then they ran into a 5-year-old bundle of energy named Genevieve “Vivi” Grenier at the Fairbanks Ski for Women event. “She definitely put some time into us,” Stephen said jokingly about the 1-kilometer event they toured with Grenier. “She’s a really talkative little girl. I was actually getting Gatorade before the race and she was all fired up.”

Stephen, who won Friday’s skiathlon convincingly, is a favorite for Sunday’s classical marathon along with Norwegian Sigrid Aas. Many of the other 20 starters will be in contention for a podium finish, but they’ll have to earn it on a course profile – with 3,500 feet of cumulative elevation gain – that resembles a heart EKG monitor readout.

Elite ski racers are used to competing on consecutive days, but going hard in two distance events – the women for a combined 45 kilometers, the men 80K – in less than 48 hours is rare. “Rest, ski a little bit, eat a lot, make sure you get the lactic acid out as best you can, relax, ski with Vivi,” Stephen said of how she was spending the time between races.

Most skiers and coaches checked out the race courses on the Birch Hill Recreation Area trails, and what they found was a bit daunting. “For me, it’s definitely going to be a sufferfest, but then again I’m used to the 1km races like today,” Valaas, Wednesday’s sprint winner, said.

Aas called the course, with its steep hills, ridiculous. “I don’t know how it’s possible to classic ski it,” said Aas, who skipped Friday’s skiathlon. “There’s going to be a lot of herringboning.”

Fairbanks native Kate Pearson, representing Anchorage’s Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, anticipates stepping outside of the classic tracks and running up the steepest hills. “If you don’t have good kick, you’re going to be herringboning the whole way,” Pearson said as she waxed her race skis. “But if your skis are good, I think it’s going to be running. I went out and previewed the course (Saturday) morning and I couldn’t stride them in the way I would like to ski.”

Pearson is overcoming a cold that, except for a three-minute sprint on Wednesday, prevented her from appearing at the Spring Series until today. Keeping up with Stephen and Aas will be a tall order, she said. “With those two, I’d like to say you go out and try to hang on, but I think you have to go out and see what your body does because it’s a pretty brutal course,” said Pearson, who is wrapping up her best season ever that included her first starts on the World Cup (in Canmore, Alberta).

Fairbanks’ Becca Rorabaugh, a strong classic skier for APU, will miss Sunday’s 11 a.m. start due to sickness, while Kikkan Randall of Anchorage is also a scratch because a back injury suffered a week ago that hasn’t improved. “It’s a bummer. She’s been amazingly durable,” APU assistant coach Frode Lillefjell said of Randall. “This seems to be a freak kind of accident.”

For the men’s 50km that begins at 1:30 p.m., 48 racers will ski seven loops totalling 2,024 metres (6,073 feet) of climbing, the equivalent of more than three ascents of Ester Dome. Pete Vordenberg, head coach of the U.S. Ski Team, said the course is “on par” with those on the World Cup, but no tougher.

Canadian Ivan Babikov of the x-c.com Factory Team appears invincible, having handily won Friday’s 30km skiathlon, as well as both shorter distance races at January’s U.S. Nationals in Michigan. “For the gold, there’s only one guy,” predicted the 39-year-old Lillefjell, who is also signed up. “But for the podium, there’s a lot.”

Under normal circumstances, Kris Freeman of the USST would give Babikov a strong challenge, but the New Hampshire native has struggled much of this season. Freeman was even with Babikov midway through the skiathlon, but he dropped out after his pace slowed dramatically. Freeman, however, is signed up, along with four other teammates and Olympians – Torin Koos (second to Babikov at the Canadian National Championships marathon a week ago), Leif Zimmerman, Chris Cook and Andrew Newell, who is making his 50km debut.

The race also marks the finale of the 2008 SuperTour, with the winner getting 60 points, double the normal amount. Six skiers are still in contention for the title – Garrott Kuzzy (276 points), Zimmerman (259), Babikov (253), Lars Flora of Anchorage (250), Marius Korthauer of the Alaska Nanooks (240) and Andrey Golovko (234).

Kristina Strandberg of Sweden has clinched the women’s crown and is on today’s start list, though she hasn’t raced this week.

Matias Saari is a reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.