OMC goes to The American Birkebeiner

I literally jumped out of bed; like there was air between my ass and the mattress, my feet and the floor. One of those mornings where I could’ve completely forgotten to have coffee and been fine with it. A possible red-flag. I couldn’t remember ever having a decent night’s sleep before a ski race, especially outside of my own bed. But no time to get superstitious. It was 6:10 a.m. in Hayward, Wisconsin on February 23rd, 2019, and my duty to make mine and three friends’ skis fast before piling into the car at 7:30, headed for a hectic starting line.

I tiptoed past Jacob (still sleeping) and ski-bounded up the stairs to get a look at what the weather was doing. About an inch of fresh overnight and still falling, warmer than predicted. Good. I splashed on the finishing touches of liquid contraband, ran the structure tool down the bases, and got my gear together in record time. The unspoken agreement: Tommy and Jenny hosted, Jacob and Anna Grace made me breakfast, I dealt with the skis.

7:40 a.m: the five of us piled into the rental Nissan Armada disaster of a car, equipped with rear-wheel-drive, summer tires, and California plates. The snow continued to fall lightly, making for a slick but manageable road surface. Normally this drive would be about thirty minutes. I sat in the way-back all bundled up, shouting music requests while Anna drove. Just before the turn off for bus pick-up, where around a thousand other cars headed, the line of traffic came to a halt. Anna hit the brakes: nothing.

{Flashback one year: What did I learn at my first Birkie? The obvious answer: best sporting event ever so far. More specifically, what about this race is so special? One finds oneself at their most present here. Whatever might suck about daily life doesn’t follow a ski racer to Hayward. There is a certain unease about the day before the race. It’s an excited and nervous energy floating around town, from bib-pickup to the grocery store. I felt it in 2018 especially coupled with my own greenness. But then I did the race, finished the race, and it was like all of that energy from the night before had been sucked out of the town and replaced by something I’d imagine would feel like a high-school reunion that I actually wanted to attend. As I wandered through the crowd hoping to see a familiar face, a guy spotted my first-timer’s medal (which I’d been instructed to wear for the remainder of the day), “First Birkie? Let me get you a beer! I did my first twenty-some-odd years ago and some guy bought me a beer after!” That may have been the moment I decided that this would become an annual pilgrimage. Or was it the giant bag of cheese curds for five bucks at the gas station the day before?** }

Within the approximate three seconds of sliding toward the back bumper of the SUV in front of us my internal questions ran something like: is this going to hurt? do we still race after we get in an accident? who will give me a ride to the start? will I even make the start? Answer: NO. And indeed, had Anna not expertly avoided collision by taking her foot off the brake and steering into the breakdown lane passing at least six stopped cars in the process, I would absolutely not have raced that day. As it turned out, I would run from where we ended up parking at the start, to the line, just in time to put my skis on and go.

Stopped on the road's shoulder, all still in shock, Tommy was first to break the silence: “well Anna, good thing you’re a bike racer.”

The start area at the Birkie is an agoraphobe’s personal hell. Hundreds if not thousands of nervous spandex-clad cross country skiers run past from every direction heading for unclear destinations. The line up at the portable toilets is formidable to say the least. Having the luxury of a parking pass eases the tension massively; however, by the time we found a spot the gun was fifteen minutes from firing.

I had Anna Grace and Jacob tail me to the first place I saw to test skis: some ungroomed snowmobile trail. No time to be picky. It took about 20 seconds to decide my Fischer Speedmax Plus would be the ticket, and I was particularly thankful for that because they were prepped in almost the exact way I’d done everyone else’s. From there I ran directly to the starting chute where I saw the 200 other racers in the Elite Wave already lined up and ready.

[The insanity of the start]

Starting at the back of 200 skiers pushed “gutter to gutter” is an obvious disadvantage. Everyone wants to get as far forward as possible, and I’m not the type of racer to ski myself into the race; in other words, I like to get right to the front and hang on as long as possible.

So when the gun went off I was entirely focused on getting myself through the traffic. Thankfully my skis were quite fast for the first couple of kilometers and I was able to weave my way past 150 others, narrowly avoiding skis and poles flying in every direction. So there I was, around 3k into the race and I could just see the back of the lead group disappear into the woods. Just to move this far up from where I started had meant burning some serious unnecessary energy.

In a race like the Birkebeiner, 50 kilometers, over 2 hours long, there’s plenty of time to move through moods and mentalities. It may be the strongest and most vivid internal dialogue I ever experience. Nothing on the outside of the moment matters, and the moments rush by. Mantras like “keep moving up, keep moving up,” “stay here, don’t give up on this pace,” “relax, recover, stay relaxed,” characterize the intense focus of a long race. The shifts from positivity to negativity can be drastic and variable. Managing this push/pull can be as important and demanding as the physical aspect.

The most difficult part of the Birkie for me is the first fifteen kilometers. Everyone is fresh, the hills are long and gradual, and there’s little recovery. Had I at the time known that I was skiing between 15th and 25th place overall, the pain would’ve been more manageable. In fact, I had no idea what place I was in. For all I knew it could’ve been 50th. The questions and self doubt creep in when you don’t know, or believe that you’re ‘on a good day’.

Around 15k into the race the group I was in probably contained around 8 skiers, some of whom I recognized thanks to the Bibs sporting our names (new for 2019), notably Adam Swank, consistently finishing in the top 20 overall for a number of years. It was around this time I received the only legitimate piece of objective information I would get all race: a guy standing on the side of the trail shouted, “90 seconds off the leaders.” I of course dismissed it as someone’s unquantified guess, only much later did I realize the guy was likely spot-on.

[Your correspondent enjoying the brief respite of a downhill section]

Despite my self-doubt and uncertainty over how the race was going, I was having fun. I cruised along in a group of skiers that was continuously growing in numbers as we caught racers dropped from the lead group, and others caught up from behind. The middle section of the Birkie, from around 15k to 30k is in my opinion the easiest part (if that’s possible). The trail meanders and rolls pleasantly through the hardwood forest, and the climbs aren’t long enough to induce major suffering. It was during this segment that I settled into a rhythm, got my heart rate down enough to munch on some semi-solid food, and take some drinks out of my bottle.

The race really is a blur. Trying to remember what it was actually like, those 140 minutes of my life, isn’t easy. I’m not sure what that has to do with; possibly the intense focus on the moment; trying to block out as much of the outside world as I could manage. Difficult to say. My most detailed memories are of the final 10 or 15 kilometers. As a basic sketch, there are three fairly significant climbs within about 5k of each other, then a long downhill section, then about 5k of flat to the finish. It’s within these final kilometers that one’s body starts to detach from one’s head.

My group had swelled to fifteen (give or take) racers by the time we arrived at the first of these three final hills and I knew that by the time we hit the flat run-in to the finish we would no longer be fifteen. It became clear almost immediately that a couple of us still had some reserves as the pace began to increase. Just a tad on the first climb, perhaps to test the legs, but by the crest of climb #2, “bitch (of a) hill,” as it’s affectionately known in Hayward, we were full-gas. And it wasn’t the hill itself so much as the half kilometer that followed it--a nasty false flat--that set off a bomb in our train of skiers from all over the country. Admittedly, I wasn’t quite ready for the drastic injection of pace by Adam Swank and another skier I didn’t recognize. They opened a small gap on me just as I was thinking, “Okay, now I just have to play defense,” but when I looked back to see daylight behind me, the only option was to burn every last match to catch the two ahead. Every other skier from our group had somehow, miraculously, been dropped before me.

We were down to a trio by the time we hit the last few kilometers, which traverse the frozen Hayward Lake, and deposit racers in downtown Hayward for the final run-in to the finish. I’d noticed a slight headwind in the woods for most of the race, and I figured that it would only help my chances of staying with my companions over the lake, if I could tuck into their draft. But to my dismay, we emerged onto the lake with a solid tail wind, leaving me no place to hide as my legs and hips began to suffer the shooting pains of muscle cramps. I had the bizarre sensation that my limbs were no longer being controlled by my brain, rather acting on their own disjointed synapses. The two skiers I’d hoped to hang onto until the finish line slowly distanced me as my vision blurred slightly. I tried to enjoy the moment, for there was no one gaining on me from behind.

The final half-kilometer of the American Birkebeiner is grand. Racers cross a ski-specific bridge over highway 63 and drop onto Main St., lined with hundreds of excited spectators. So far I haven’t had the pleasure of a neck and neck mad dash for the finish line. Both of my finishes here were completely alone. As I skied down the main drag I threw my arms up twice, once out of relief, and once as a thank you to all of those strangers watching the show. And they thanked me back with a massive roar.

Coming over the finish line wasn’t exactly an immediate relief as one might expect. I was treated to a pretty severe pain in my throat which I’d never really experienced after a ski race before. It felt sort of like a combination of being strangled and drinking boiling hot liquid. So as people were trying to talk to me I was wondering how long this startling and painful sensation was going to last, and at which point it would become an emergency. Thankfully, ten minutes later I started to feel better. I found my friend Matt Briggs soon thereafter, and quickly discovered we’d finished within the top 20 overall, much to our surprise. We’d estimated closer to 30th.

Completing such a race is an accomplishment in itself. Getting a result sweetens the deal. My spirits were pretty high for the rest of that day. I met friends at the pub, The Moccasin, had a fantastic dinner, and just enjoyed the spectacle of thousands of exhausted, satisfied skiers living in the moment: the weekend they look forward to all year.

[A couple skiers stop on Main St. to enjoy a celebratory nip]

    [Your correspondent with travel companions & fellow racers Jacob & Anna Grace enjoying a light ski the day after]

[No caption necessary]                                                                                   

*my only pro-tip for the Birkie: get yourself at least one of these bags of Wisconsin cheese curds and bring it wherever you go after the race. It will almost definitely be the drug that keeps your night going. Many of your friends will fall victim to “getting too tired to stay out past nine,” and I can only imagine it’s thanks to their failure in the cheese realm.