Marcialonga preparation. Yes, you read that right, I went up on skate skis that I had put extra blue kick wax on from about my heel too typical moderate or short kick zone. This was to see if I could get a kick and I got wonderful kick. The low overnight was 10° and the snow is probably still cold at about 20° so that certainly helped. I will did repeats up tangent north, which is the best sustained moderately steep uphill. I also had pretty decent double polling and kick double pole. The whole idea would be that I would carry it and just double pole on skate skis for the first 66K or so. Might take me 3 to 4 minutes to rapidly put on one layer and cork it in half assed butt would be worth it because I think I could double pole 15 minutes per Kay faster with skate skis then classic skis even if the classic skis had virtually no kick wax on them . I would put glide floral carbon on the tips and tails and leave the kicks on unwaxed but definitely not sanded.