4.20 am, a brown hare bounds through the darkness across the bare grass.  It's still hopping around the hill as we return from breakfast.  I decide it's a good omen.  We need one and a bit of faith.  There's no snow in Mora apart from the race track and the distant hills were decked in green and brown yesterday.

5.15 am, we join a hot bus of skiers settling in for the one and half hour journey to the start at Salen.  It falls silent as apprehension and the desire for last minute rest creep around the passengers.  Outside snow soon lies icily between the pines. 

The starting gun goes off in the background but there's no panic.  This is an open track event and we can start any time between 7 and 8 am.  Dawn streaks the sky pink, red and purple as our timing chips beep us over the start line.  The klister on my skis catches on the frosty track and tries to trip me up.

The first and biggest hill comes up quickly, I steadily work my way up.  An older Swede in starry, blue lycra  has spotted the Union Jack on my bum bag and asks where I'm from and have I done the race before.  He reads my mind and offers reassurance, "you'll think this hill goes on for ever but it doesn't, you're almost at the top, take it easy".  I remember friends moaning about queues on this stretch but they're mercifully absent in this the smallest of three 90k races with around 5,000 competitors.

Golden sunshine filters through frosty branches and the parallel mirrors of track reflect the blue sky overhead.  A  beautiful day emerges as we wind our way over the white, sparkling heathland edged with firs and pines.  I'm ski-ing well, switching between diagonal, double-pole and double-pole kick techniques across the gently undulating terrain.  And I'm passing people, that makes a nice change from so many of my previous nine world loppet races.

After 10.5k the first of the seven refreshment and waxing stations appears at Smagan.  I try the orange sports drink.  The taste reminds me of the Tartu Marathon in Estonia when I was rather unwell on the race.  I rapidly eat a sweet bun and mentally note to stick to water for the rest of the course.  I join the swirl of skiers heading onwards.

Up, down, along, and around we snake.  The tracks are glazed so the recommended mix of universal and red klister works well.   It's usually the stuff of waxroom nightmares.  With the texture of runny honey it's all too easy to bind skis, clothes and self in a web of sticky threads, but today it's magic.  I get it topped up by some genial Toko chaps at the third station who realise I'm the English woman who's just been interviewed over the tannoy; they wish me good luck. 

45k - hooray, the halfway point has come up remarkably soon.   I can start counting down to the finish.  I'm still feeling good apart from a niggling pain in my left hand that began somewhere around the 30k mark.  Think I must have bruised it in a fall a few days previously. 

After Evertsberg there are some good rollercoaster stretches but I'm wary of some of my fellow competitors' approach to icy downhills.  Marshalls sign them to slow down but this just seems to cue launching themselves in rapid succession, straight-legged and arms flapping, so pile-ups are inevitable.   Oddly it almost seems to be part of the culture but my self-preservation instinct kicks in.  I leave space after wobblier skiers and snowplough round the fallen, waiting for a clearer run when I tuck right down and speed off. 

I'm enjoying myself and the day passes surprisingly quickly.  Another stand of sentinel pines, another lake frozen like the top of a Christmas cake, another backwoods hamlet of reddish brown log cabins; a vista of rolling hills, the silent forest, the refreshment stations manned by jovial adults and seemingly obedient children.

The tracks become increasingly icy and difficult over the last 30k as the route descends towards the finish.  Eldris is the last stop at 8k from the finish and my memory starts to play tricks.  Surely that final signed turn to Mora was just around the corner - but the track wanders on and on ...  Sheet ice interspersed with sugary inclines and slush ... and more pine trees.  My left hand is painfully stiff and I'm slowing down despite the lure of the finish line. 

At last I recognise the final descent and the straggle of skiers I'm with ratchets up the double poling.  Over the causeway through the campsite, up the hill to the home straight past the sombre spire of Mora church and into the finish flooded with the familiar sound of 'Congratulations'.  Did this song ever sound so good! 

My stop watch reads 8:44.  Unbelievable.  What a fantastic day.  Time to scoff that biscuity, chocolately sports bar that I've been so looking forward to ...