Keeping the national cross-country ski championships on track is an around-the-clock job, says the chief of competition.

Claude Chabot has been working on organizing the Haywood Ski Nationals for two years, since the bid for the championships from the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club beat out bids from four other clubs across the country.

Now that they’re here, the army of some 230 volunteers is going flat-out, whether it’s the trail groomers or officials keeping times with a bank of 11 computers to back them up.

The day literally begins around midnight, after the temperature has dropped to below zero, so that the snow is stable and the groomers can get on the trails to do what they need to do over the course of three or fours hours.

From then on, its non-stop.

The stadium crew is on-site anywhere for 4:30 a.m. on to make sure they’re set up by 8 a.m. for the races scheduled for the day, while the course crew arrives between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Race office staffers – “the unsung heroes of the race world” – are at their post by 7:30.

There are race bibs and computer chips to be sorted and distributed to the 58 club teams participating from across Canada.

Then there are the snacks and coffee that are provided for everybody.

Pat McKenna, the retired food instructor from F.H. Collins Secondary School, and her team provide lunch in the banquet room of the Mount McIntyre Recreation Centre.

There are 480 elite skiers needing to be fed, along with another 100 coaches and support staff.

Awards have to be organized and presented each day, and somebody has to collect the bibs, wash them and get them ready for the next day.

Race office officials are usually going until 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

“We are almost going 24 hours a day,” Chabot says during a break Monday afternoon.

There are a couple of brief interruptions to discuss grooming, and the need to provide hay bails at a certain area in the stadium.

“I have no idea how many volunteer hours we’ve put in this event,” he says. “I would guess 10,000, 20,000.”

Chabot says they’ve been moving snow and organizing shovelling parties every Sunday all winter long just to make sure trail conditions would be optimal for the week of racing.

Efforts to ensure the race course met the standards required by the International Ski Federation began shortly after Whitehorse was awarded the championships.

The chief of competition is at it himself every morning at 5:30. One of his duties is to ski the race circuit being used that day along with the other race marshals to ensure everything is in good order.

“Add all that up and it’s scary, it is really scary,” he says of the commitment by the hordes of volunteers and race officials supporting the championships.

While hosting the Haywoods is a massive logistical undertaking, Chabot says, it also fulfills the Whitehorse club’s goal of having a major event every three or four years.

Whitehorse last hosted the Haywood championships in 2010, followed by the Arctic Winter Games in 2012.

While hosting is a massive undertaking, the benefits go far beyond the opportunity to have the best cross-country skiers in Canada compete locally, including members of the national team, says Chabot.

He points out an analysis of the economic impact conducted after the 2010 championships showed that more than $1 million was generated for the local economy. And these championships are larger by about 60 skiers, he points out.

Chabot says local sponsors such as Air North, Driving Force, Tim Hortons, Yukon Brewery and The Claim have bent over backwards to accommodate the event.

Each skier brings six pairs of skis on average – that’s 2,880 pairs.

So much was the cargo load that Air North sent an airplane down to Vancouver empty just to pick up the additional cargo.

Driving Force has run out of vans and pickup trucks, and Tim Hortons ensures a steady supply of coffee and snacks.

Chabot quips that at the end, he’s particularly thankful to Yukon Brewery.

Bill Curtis, president of the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club, said Chabot and Joan Stanton, the mother of local Olympians Emily and Graham Nishikawa and chief of the organizing committee, have carried the load.

“They’ve done all the work,” says Curtis. “I didn’t have to do anything, I did, but I didn’t have to.

“They took care of everything.”

Curtis says he purposely did not pencil himself in for any duties this week, so that he could float more or less as a troubleshooter or gopher – go for this, go for that.

First it was helping to find a computer file over the weekend, and then there was coffee to be delivered....