Finlandia-hiihto training plan for February 2027

Finlandia-hiihto runs in Lahti on 20 and 21 February 2027. From the first Monday of November you have sixteen weeks. That is enough to finish the 62 km, to take a big bite out of last year's time, or to race the front groups, as long as each week has one clear job.

What the 2027 race asks of you

• Days and techniques: Saturday 20 February is classic, over 62, 32 and 20 km. Sunday 21 February is free technique over the same distances. Pick your day by technique, then train for it. The skate vs classic guide helps if you have not chosen yet.
• Start and finish: both are at the Lahti ski stadium. The participant guide warns about the climb right after the start and calls the final descent into the stadium fairly steep.
• Last hill: in the organisers' route notes, the last climb is Intiaanikukkula, as on the Lahti World Cup course.
• Start groups: the first 62 km group starts at 9.00. Only the KILPA group lines up by bib number. Everyone else enters the stadium in order of arrival. Check your own group's final start time on the participant page before race day.
• Closing times: each aid station closes at a set time. On the 62 km route, Papinkaivo closes at 14.30 and Tapanila at 17.00. The finish closes at 17.30 on both days.
• Aid stations: water, sports drink and energy sweets everywhere, and depending on the station, blueberry soup, pickles, broth and pulla. The stations offer wax service, but the guide tells you to bring some wax of your own.

Four phases from November to race day

1. Base, 2 November to 13 December. Easy volume on rollerskis, hiking with poles and the first sessions on lit trails. Technique work in double poling and either diagonal stride or skating. One strength session a week.
2. Build, 14 December to 17 January. Threshold sessions and the first hill repeats come in. Long sessions get longer.
3. Race-specific, 18 January to 7 February. Long sessions in race technique, race-pace blocks and feeding practice.
4. Taper, 8 February to race day. Less volume, same intensity, rested legs.

Weekly structure by goal

The hours below are common ranges from coaching practice. Fit them to your own history.

First-timer, aiming to finish

• Ski 4 to 6 hours a week over 4 sessions.
• Make one session long and easy every week.
• Keep two easy sessions of 45 to 75 minutes, with technique drills.
• From the build phase, run one session of short repeats, for example 8 x 1 minute on a gentle climb.
• Add 20 minutes of core and leg strength twice a week.

Mid-pack, aiming for a better time

• Ski 6 to 9 hours a week over 5 or 6 sessions.
• Keep the long session and two easy sessions.
• Run one threshold session, for example 4 x 8 minutes at a pace you could hold for an hour.
• Run one hill session, for example 6 x 3 minutes on the same climb.
• For the classic day, spend 30 minutes of an easy session double poling only.

Front groups, racing for time and place

• Ski 9 to 14 hours a week over 6 to 8 sessions, with some doubles.
• Run two quality sessions a week: one threshold, one hard hill session.
• For the classic day, add one session of long double-poling intervals, for example 3 x 12 minutes.
• Keep everything else genuinely easy.

Long-session progression

The long session carries the plan. Add 15 to 30 minutes every other week and ease off every fourth week.

• First-timer: 1 h 30 in November, 2 h 30 before Christmas, 3 h 30 by late January.
• Mid-pack: 2 h 15 in November, 3 h at New Year, then 3 h 30 to 4 h in January with the last third at race pace.
• Front groups: 2 h 30 in November and 3 h 30 in January, plus race simulations with 2 x 30 minutes at race pace.
• Last long session: about three weeks out, on the weekend of 30 and 31 January.

Double poling decides the classic day

In classic marathons, flat and gently rolling terrain is double poling terrain. Over 62 km, upper body endurance matters more than many recreational skiers expect.

• In the study by Stöggl and colleagues of an elite classic distance race, every skier double poled on the flat, and almost all used diagonal stride on the steep climbs.
• On moderate climbs, faster skiers used more kick double poling and less diagonal stride than slower skiers.
• The men's winner double poled the whole course without grip wax. If you are thinking about skiing without kick wax, test it on long sessions in January, never in race week.
• For the skate day, the same logic applies to V2 on the flat and V1 on steep climbs. Repeat one climb as intervals and compare the rep times.

How hard the hard days are

Most of the plan is easy, on purpose.

• Seiler and Kjerland found junior cross-country skiers did about 75 percent of their endurance sessions at low intensity, 8 percent around threshold and 17 percent above it, measured by heart rate.
• Tønnessen and colleagues followed Olympic and world champions in cross-country skiing and biathlon: 91 percent of endurance training time was low intensity, though 23 percent of sessions included high intensity work.
• For a recreational skier that means two hard sessions a week at most, and easy days slow enough to talk.

Taper

• A meta-analysis by Bosquet and colleagues found the best results from a 2-week taper that cut volume by 41 to 60 percent while keeping intensity and frequency unchanged.
• The champions in the Tønnessen study barely cut volume, and 10 of 11 did a hard session within 48 hours of their best race.
• In practice: from 8 February, halve the long session and drop one easy session. Keep short race-pace efforts. On Thursday 18 February, ski 30 to 40 minutes with 4 x 1 minute fast.

Pacing and feeding on race day

• Start slower than race pace. The climb after the start comes with a crowd. Ski the first hour at an effort you could hold for the whole distance, even when your group goes faster.
• Get to the waiting area early. Outside the KILPA group, arrival order decides your place on the line, and a better place means less passing in the first kilometres.
• Know your closing times. Work out from your group's start time how much time you have to Papinkaivo and Tapanila.
• Eat early and regularly. Jeukendrup describes up to about 60 g of carbohydrate per hour from one source and around 90 g for very long events with mixed carbohydrate sources, with lower amounts at lower intensity. Practise your amount on every long session from January.
• Save something for the end. Intiaanikukkula comes last, and the descent to the stadium still asks for control on tired legs.

If you train on a fixed loop, the post on why kilometre splits mislead on ski loops explains how to read your sessions by lap instead.

When you ski the same climb as repeats all winter, Skibuddy times every lap and every climb rep and sets each rep against your best and your average, so you see whether your climbing is coming along.