Lauri Karjaluoto drew his inspiration from Gunner Rasmussen.
That's what possessed Karjaluoto to try to ski one kilometre for every year of his age two weeks ago as part of his training for Sunday's Prince George Integris Iceman.
For Karjaluoto, who turned 70 on Dec. 12, that's a lot of years.
"The birthday ski was actually 73.3 km, I wanted to do a bit more than Gunner Rasmussen did, he did 71-something [kilometres] a few years ago and that got me going on it," said Karjaluoto.
"It wasn't hard, I watched my heart rate. I averaged 135 and I know I can survive quite a distance at that heart rate, which is about 85 per cent of my max. I'd never skied that distance in one day, so I was a little nervous -- will I survive? But I survived and didn't feel bad at all and went skiing the next day "
That epic ski took about 5 1/2 hours, about 3 1/2 hours more than it took him to cover the Iceman route on Sunday. Karjaluoto easily won the veteran men's solo category in 2:02:56.
"This is a running race and I had a good run," said Karjaluoto. "My cardio is OK, it's just that the young guys get their heart rates so much higher so I'm probably much closer to my max than they are to their max. You just have to pace yourself so that you can carry it and finish it off."
A day without skiing is like a day without sunshine for Finnish-born Karjaluoto and his 65-year-old wife Helina. They are regulars on the trails at Otway Nordic Centre and when the weather gets nasty or trail conditions are bad, they go to the Aquatic Centre for a swim and gym workout. In the summer, they walked the Mount Robson trail together and completed the 44km trip to Berg Lake and back in one day.
"It's part of daily life and I'm not working so I have lots of time," said Karjaluoto.
"Life is just so different when you do the exercise and you're fit -- the sky's the limit. But if you don't exercise you can't do it."
Two decades ago, Karjaluoto was pushing the fastest guys in the Iceman. He knows those days are now behind him but that doesn't bother him.
"I'm pretty proud of him," added Helina. "He works hard at it and he enjoys it very much. I was amazed how well he looked in the swim."
At the other end of the age spectrum in Sunday's Iceman were the kids from four elementary schools -- Spruceland Traditional, Van Bien, Harwin and Westwood -- who competed in the junior mixed team relay.
Seven kids from Spruceland and 18 from Van Bien spent weeks training together for the race and broke off into teams for the Iceman relay. Many of them had never completed a 5km run before they started their training.
"This was a huge for for team spirit, it started off as something we didn't know much about, and it's new for some of the kids and then we had staff come on board," said Spruceland principal Linda Picton. "Not only did we have the kids team and our staff team, but a bunch of staff just came to help out and cheer and that was pretty exciting."
Tyler Gagnon's first Iceman experience with the Spartan Storm Chasers almost included an impromptu swim. The 12-year-old Grade 7 student at Spruceland slipped and fell on the water-covered ice near the oval and ended with a wet pant leg but got through the race otherwise unscathed.
"When we went down the hill it was all ice," said Gagnon. "I just ran on top of the snow banks. It was an exciting race and I want to do it again. I'd like to do the whole thing myself."
The Firecrackers -- Alyson Raper, Morgan Holyk, Julia Kreitz, Arianna Payne, Brianna Lopez and Quinn Friesen -- won the junior mixed relay in 1:42:22.
Last year's Iceman was canceled due to extreme cold and Sunday's balmy conditions made it much easier on the athletes and the race volunteers. The 502 participants was down about a 100 from previous years. Considering the iffy weather, Iceman chair Karen Seland was satisfied with the numbers.
"A lot of people are involved with Canada Winter Games and have a lot of time commitments this time of year and we were thrilled with the turnout," said Seland. "We loved seeing those kids out there. It started with the Harwin Frozen Warriors and now we have three additional schools. From what we've heard it's got their teachers and their parents involved and it's become quite an event."
