Vasaloppet är världens äldsta och längsta skidlopp och inför loppet 2012 är 15800 deltagare anmälda. Tidigare forskning har rapporterat att 75 % av alla deltagare påverkas av yttre motivationsfaktorer till deltagande samt visat att målsättning är en effektiv strategi för att öka motivationen. Studiens syfte var att undersöka vad som motiverar människor att genomföra och senare återvända till Vasaloppet utifrån ett motivations- och målsättningsperspektiv. Undersökningen genomfördes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer och omfattade tio manliga med åldern (M = 33,1) Vasaloppsdeltagare som har genomfört loppet en till fyra gånger och dessutom hade anmält sig till nästkommande lopp. Resultatet visade en förändring från yttre motivation vid det första genomförandet till en högre nivå av inre motivation men med prestationsmål som målsättning vid de båda sammanhangen. Studiens respondenter upplevde en stor skillnad från första till nästkommande Vasalopp, främst att målsättningen och motivationen är större inför nästkommande lopp, detta eftersom vikten av erfarenhet tycks vara en bidragande faktor till både högre målsättning men också högre motivation. För vidare forskning rekommenderas en longitudinell studie utifrån ett liknande syfte som den aktuella studien, samt att det skulle vara av intresse att undersöka vad som får Vasaloppsdeltagare att enbart genomföra loppet en gång. / Vasaloppet is the world's oldest and longest skirace and there are 15800 participants listed for the upcoming race this year. Previous research has reported that 75 % of all participants are extrinsically motivatied to participation and shown that goal-setting is one effective strategy in order to increase motivation. The present study aimed to investigate what causes people to participate in and return to Vasaloppet from a motivational- and goal-setting perspective. Semi- structured interviews were conducted with 10 male (M=33.1) participants whom had all participated in Vasaloppet from one to four times before and were entered for this following year. The result showed a change from extrinsic motivation at the first race to a higher level of intrinsic motivation later on but with outcome goal orientation at both races. The participants experienced a big difference from the first to the following race, especially regarding higher achievement goal-setting and more motivation ahead of the upcoming race, where experience seems to be a contributing factor. For further research it is recommended a longitudinal study a along the similar premises as the current study and to investigate the Vasalopp participants that only choose to attend once.

BAKGRUND: Leukocyter ingår i kroppens immunförsvar vilket skyddar oss mot b.la. angrepp av bakterier och virus. Vid högintensivt fysiskt arbete så hamnar vi i ett s.k. ”open window” där vi är som mest mottagliga för sjukdomar. Tidigare studier har visat att vid långvarig, högintensivt fysiskt arbete ökar leukocytantalet, vilket leder till att kroppen sätter upp ett försvar mot angrepp.SYFTE: Studiens syfte var att undersöka effekten på leukocyter och dess undergrupper, om de ökade efter ett långvarigt högintensivt fysiskt arbete, i detta fall Vasaloppet. METOD: Mätningar har gjorts via kapillärt blodprov, de gjordes innan start och efter målgång och analyserades sedan i Hemocue WBC Diff. RESULTAT: Totala leukocytantalet ökade med 6,8, neutrofila granulocyterna ökade med 6,7, monocyterna ökade med 0,2 och de basofila granulocyterna ökade med 0,03. Lymfocyterna minskade med  -0,1 och de eosinofila granulocyterna minskade med -0,55.  KONKLUSION: Långvarigt, ansträngande, fysiskt arbete, leder till en ökning av leukocyter och vissa undergrupper. Detta innebär att immunförsvaret påverkas och man hamnar i det så kallade ”open window”. Till framtida studier skulle det vara intressant att se hur immunförsvaret påverkas av träning under en längre period.

The research for the master thesis was about the influence the participation in sport events taking place in nature has on sustainable behaviour of the individual. Although there is an understanding of what sustainability means in literature, each person defines its means for her or himself and acts differently. As there is not much research that looks at sustainability as something that can be experienced, this paper is an attempt to find out. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to identify how a participant of sport events, taking place in nature, is influenced by the experiences during the different stages of the event, including preparation, racing, and the time afterwards. As a theoretical concept for a change through experience transformation was chosen. As case for such an event the Vasaloppet 2018 was chosen. As there is a large variety of races during the events, the participation in the context of research includes individuals that join the full 90-kilometres distances during daytime. As a result, the sample is derived from the Vasaloppet (main run), and open spår (open trail). The concepts derived from literature encompass sustainability in relation with organisations, using the triple bottom line. In this context, the sustainability of events is conceptualized in conjunction with the ideas of people, planet and profit. After exploring concepts that are important on an organisational level, the three levels of sustainability by Cavagnaro and Curiel (2012) was used to get a better understanding of the role of the individual. Further concepts are serious leisure and consumption, as the participant of an event, for this research, is also someone who consumes products and services in relation to performing serious leisure. Also, the motivations to participate are examined. Additional, the meaning of experiences and possible experiences of events were elaborated. Finally, the concept of transformation for this paper were discovered. To reach the aim of the research a qualitative research approach, based on social constructivism was taken. The research was conducted by having interviews with six participants of the 2018 Vasaloppet. The obtained data was analysed by means of an inductive thematic analysis, creating themes from what was said by the interviewees. The key findings discussed are their understanding of individual and organisational sustainability, as well as transport, in the context of the Vasaloppet experience. Further a chapter about experiences that made the interviewees thinking about issues that might cause transformation is added. A chapter about actual found transformational experiences is added in closing. Eventually a reflection on the research process is given, before concluding the thesis.

Allt fler människor deltar i lopp som sträcker sig över långa distanser. Denna studies syftevar att undersöka om dessa människors personligheter skiljer sig åt beroende på vilkengren de deltar i, och i så fall på vilket sätt. Med utgångspunkt i femfaktorteorin (Big Five)och med hjälp av ett självskattningsformulär, Revised NEO Personality Inventory, undersöktesoch jämfördes 214 löpare i Ultravasan 2015 och 145 cyklister i Cykelvasan 2015.Frågeställningen som föranledde arbetet var ifall löparnas personlighet skiljer sig från cyklisternas.Resultaten visade att löpare har en högre grad öppenhet i jämförelse med cyklisterna.Löparna hade även en lägre grad av extraversion i förhållande till cyklisterna,en skillnad som var statistiskt signifikant. Generellt sett visade resultaten små skillnadermellan löpare och cyklister. / More people than ever participate in long distance races and the purpose of this study wasto investigate the personality of these individuals. We had 214 Ultravasan runners and145 Cykelvasan cyclists complete the Revised NEO Personality Inventory test, to assesstheir personality based on the Big Five. The main question was whether the personality ofthe runners would differ from the cyclists’.Results showed that runners scored higher on openness compared to the cyclists.Furthermore, runners were significantly less extrovert than the cyclists. Generally however,the results showed minor differences in personality between the two groups.

Vasaloppet is a cross country ski event which has been held in Sweden for about 50 years. Now more than 50,000 people of different ages participate in various cross country ski races during the Vasaloppet winter week in Dalarna County. This increasing demand needs good traffic and transportation planning to avoid congestion and provide safe, on time and environmentally friendly transportation for participants and visitors to the area. The key for a good event traffic planning is reliable and up-to-date traffic data which is not available for the Vasaloppet winter week. This study is an attempt to collect traffic data in order to find the movement patterns in the area and estimate origin-destination matrices for the main event of Vasaloppet week. Based on resources and time limitation it was decided to use a web-base d participants’ survey in order to collect traffic data. The link to the survey was sent to email address of a sample of 5000 participants. About 64% of the participants drove from their home town to the area and about 31 percent travelled by bus. Train and airplane have a very small share in travel mode to the area. Malungsälen, Mora and Älvdalen are three municipalities in Dalarna County with the highest share in accommodating participants. On the day of the race, bus and car have approximately the same share in travel mode with 45% and 47% respectively.

<p>This paper is about skiing and Swedish nationalism during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The aim is to investigate why skiing was considered so eminently suited for the incorporation of certain ideals in the national fellowship.</p><p>The paper accounts an analyse of texts and documents about Swedish skiing from 1897-1924. Skiing was a nationalistic concern from the very beginning of this period. It was connected to heartfelt feelings towards the Swedish nature, the patriotic upbringing of the youth, as well as the health of the nation. Over the years skiing also became an increased object of sportification. The competitions were popular, and the nationalistic propagandists saw the contests as means to popularize the sport. Thereby they also hoped to attract attention to the national ideals which skiing was associated with – deep feelings for the nature, a strong youth suitable for military service, and a healthy population.</p><p>Reserachers interested in the history of Swedish sport, often understand the sportification as a gradual dissociation from the nationalistic ambitions. They admit that sports, especially skiing, was influenced by patriotic ideas. But when skiing became a larger object of competition, an ideology of competition gradually replaced the nationalistic strivings.</p><p>This paper understands skiing as an invented tradition, according to Eric Hobsbawm’s <em>The Invention of Tradition</em>. An invented tradition shows a formalization and ritualization of a practice. The healthy skiing in the magnificent Swedish nature, is in this paper understood as the ritualized part of the tradition, while the competitions are seen as the formalized part.</p><p>By understanding skiing as an invented tradition, this paper shows that an increased interest for competitions, and the establishment of an ideology of competition, by no means replaced the efforts influenced by a nationalistic ideology. Nationalism and the ideology of competition did not exclude each other. They both existed within the same tradition, a tradition which reflects the strivings of this historic period.</p><p>Skiing was eminently suitable for the incorporation of certain national ideals in the national fellowship: Skiing communicated the ideals of the nation, and the competitions gained interest for this sport and the ideals it was associated with. The increased interest for competitions represented an increased efficiency in the nationalistic strivings.</p>

This paper is about skiing and Swedish nationalism during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The aim is to investigate why skiing was considered so eminently suited for the incorporation of certain ideals in the national fellowship. The paper accounts an analyse of texts and documents about Swedish skiing from 1897-1924. Skiing was a nationalistic concern from the very beginning of this period. It was connected to heartfelt feelings towards the Swedish nature, the patriotic upbringing of the youth, as well as the health of the nation. Over the years skiing also became an increased object of sportification. The competitions were popular, and the nationalistic propagandists saw the contests as means to popularize the sport. Thereby they also hoped to attract attention to the national ideals which skiing was associated with – deep feelings for the nature, a strong youth suitable for military service, and a healthy population. Reserachers interested in the history of Swedish sport, often understand the sportification as a gradual dissociation from the nationalistic ambitions. They admit that sports, especially skiing, was influenced by patriotic ideas. But when skiing became a larger object of competition, an ideology of competition gradually replaced the nationalistic strivings. This paper understands skiing as an invented tradition, according to Eric Hobsbawm’s The Invention of Tradition. An invented tradition shows a formalization and ritualization of a practice. The healthy skiing in the magnificent Swedish nature, is in this paper understood as the ritualized part of the tradition, while the competitions are seen as the formalized part. By understanding skiing as an invented tradition, this paper shows that an increased interest for competitions, and the establishment of an ideology of competition, by no means replaced the efforts influenced by a nationalistic ideology. Nationalism and the ideology of competition did not exclude each other. They both existed within the same tradition, a tradition which reflects the strivings of this historic period. Skiing was eminently suitable for the incorporation of certain national ideals in the national fellowship: Skiing communicated the ideals of the nation, and the competitions gained interest for this sport and the ideals it was associated with. The increased interest for competitions represented an increased efficiency in the nationalistic strivings.

The overall aim of this thesis was to study the influence of physical activity on health. Risks and benefits of physical activity is of particular interest since there is a global trend of less physical activity among youths and adults. In order to investigate this aim we used a database from a large cross country ski race, Vasaloppet, with participants with a wide age range, and with both elite athletes and ordinary people who exercise and promote their health. The most serious risk of strenuous exercise is sudden death and it is challenging to identify preventive effects of major endemic diseases. Using epidemiological methodology we studied 200 000 Vasaloppet skiers and compared them with the general population. Based on personal identification numbers we added data from Swedish national personal and health registers, clinical registers as the cancer register, Swedeheart, or Swedish stroke register, and socioeconomic information from Statistics Sweden. In the Vasaloppet database we collected data on age, gender, finish time and number of races during the period 1989 to 2010. We evaluated risk of death during the race in two papers (I,II). During 90 years of annual races, cardiac arrest occurred in 20 skiers, of which five survived. The death rate is in average two per 100 000 skiers. We also studied the association with cancer incidence (paper III). The overall reduction of cancer was modest among skiers compared with the general population, but for cancers related to lifestyle the risks were markedly lower. We investigated the risk for recurrent myocardial infarction and found a 30% reduction among skiers (paper IV). In paper V we showed that skiers with a first stroke have a lower incidence of all-cause death. The skiers had a higher frequency of atrial fibrillation but had less severe stroke and no increased risk of recurrent stroke. Thus our data suggest that a lifestyle with a high level of physical activity may work as a protection after a cardiovascular event. Summary: The short excess mortality in endurance physical activity is by far outweighed by the long term protective effect of exercise in cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

A growing number of studies acknowledge the effect that sport events have on its surrounding environment as well as the effect the surroundings have on sport events. This has led to a larger focus on environmental sustainability within event organisations, something that however is motivated in very diverse ways and from different perspectives. This thesis, therefore, explores motivations behind the incorporation of environmentally sustainable actions within Swedish recreational sport events, and aim to provide an overview of how it is implemented within their operations. This has been done by a qualitative multiple case study with comparative elements. An outline of earlier research of motivational factors towards sustainable actions does together with an elaboration of central concepts, provide a theoretical background for the case study. The theoretical background has been further used to create an analytical framework with three main themes of motivation ‘strategic’, ‘pressure’ and ‘moral/ethical’. The cases, Vasaloppet and Vätternrundan, has been explored through face to face interviews with specific employees of the event organisations and later analysed through the analytical framework of the thesis. In addition to the interviews, documents regarding their sustainability work have together with the information that could be found on the web pages of the two events been analysed through the themes of the analytical framework. The results show a close similarity when it comes to the main challenges they are facing. Both Vasaloppet and Vätternrundan have transport as their main source of environmental impact, and the trash generated along the arena is another main challenge in order to reduce littering. Out of the three main themes of motivation, the moral and ethical motivation proved to be the main one, whereas the strategic and pressuring motivations came second and were in many cases closely entwined and related to each other. A difference in motivational background is further expressed by the respondents and policy documents of the event organisations, as Vasaloppet displayed a more proactive attitude while Vätternrundan were more reactive.