Monday, February 28, 2011

The Birkie (26-50K)

"In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, 
hitting the wall or the bonk describes a condition
caused by the depletion of glycogenstores 
in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself
 by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy."

Throughout the first half of the Birkie (see post below), my eyes were open. I was experiencing the race. I was enjoying the people watching. But as I crossed the halfway mark, my field of vision began to simplify. I didn't glance over at skiers beside me, or look as ambitiously for gaps in the crowd. Because of that, it was hard to tell exactly what happened when, but the series of events roughly fell into this order:


28K-
My legs were getting incrementally more sore with each uphill. At first I only felt a deep burn on a steep pitch, but now even slight incines would send signals to my brain that politely said "Excuse me, I'm not sure if you noticed, but we're getting a little tired down here". I needed a new game plan. The first goal would be to get as much glycogen into my body as possible. This meant that every feed stop would warrant a banana, and a power drink. My legs were out of carbohydrate stores, and the lactic acid from the anaerobic energy production was beginning to pulse through my veins. Literally. The only energy that I could give my muscles from here on forward would be directly via the gut.
   It was at about this time that I also took a mental inventory of my body. My legs were aching, but I knew they still had some extra reserve in them. My arms, on the other hand, felt great. My lungs and heart also felt just fine. So a new plan was hatched. The classic tracks that ran along the side of the track were slick and fast. If I double poled along the gradual downhills and tucked the steeper declines, I can save a TON of work from my legs, and nearly keep the same pace.
    I set the plan in action. I haven't bonked yet, and I'm determined to salvage what's left of this race.

29K-
I'm passed for the first time by another skier. He's another wave 5-er like myself. I hear him coming up from behind me and turn my head to see who's making the charge. "Good job man!" he says "I've been following you the whole time". I think he meant it to be a compliment, but I can't help but feel like I just paved the way for this guy's race.
"I'm just about done" I say, feeling like I need to give him an excuse. I let him by me. The competitive side of me growls.
"I know what you mean" he says.

But I can tell he doesn't.

I don't even contemplate sticking with him. He moves up the pack, which is finally starting to thin out at this point. I tuck as much as possible on even the slightest of downhills, and use my arms as much as I can, but I'm faced with two inescapable facts: 1) every uphill needs legs, and 2) There are a lot of uphills left.

30K-
I've admitted to myself now that I have completely bonked. There are only 20 kilometers left in the race. I am 3/5 of the way there, but the winding and climbing snowy trail in front of me seems like a hellish, unending mobius strip. I've bonked countless times before this, and I know what to expect, so I slow down. The name of the game is just to finish. My friend Kevin gave me some pre-race advice. "Thats the great thing about the birke" he said, "you just go out there and ski, and if you get tired you just slow down and enjoy the race."

I slowed down, but I didn't know about "enjoying the race". It was at this point that I started to harbor ill-will towards this competition, and little prince Haakon, for starting this blasted tradition. When your body goes, your mind soon follows.

35K-
The strangest thing has happened to me. I've gotten cold. And not just my fingers and toes, or my exposed facial skin, but I'm cold at my core. This has never happened to me in a race before. Usually, if dressed properly, you arrive at the starting line slightly chilled, and once the gun goes off you warm up. By the time you cross the finish line, you can take your shirt off in -20F temps without blinking, cascading steam off your torso into the frigid northern air, and feeling like an all-around bad-ass.

But I felt chilled, and not much like a bad-ass. More like ass-bad. The reason, I figured out, was because I could no longer ski fast enough to keep my heart rate up. My legs simply didn't have the power to keep me moving. This meant I needed to start double poling faster, just to keep my internal temperature at a reasonable level. Its not that it hurt to use my legs, its just that they weren't working.

More skiers passed me, some from wave 5, but others from wave 4. I saw the familiar faces of those that I had passed so casually earlier in the race. I would be embarrassed if I weren't so tired, but I feel like they are smirking deep down.

Damn you, Prince Haakon, damn you.

I see a sign on the trailside. 13K left. I can make that.

38K-
Not so soon thereafter, I passed another sign that read "38K", and silently cursed to myself. I must have misread the previous sign, and it now feels like someone just tacked on an additional 3K to the race. All I wanted was that 40K sign. I wanted it so bad. For me, the race was now all about baby steps. Kilometer to kilometer. Hill to hill. If you are in the depths of a bonk and try to visualize the entire race, you will collapse to the snow in a heap of despair.

I knew that there was an infamous hill coming up here shortly, but I wasn't sure where exactly. The night before I had written down all of the landmarks that I deemed "worth remembering", and committed them to memory. Well, there wasn't much left of my memory at this point, and I couldn't recall if it was 41K or 45K. Irregardless of where it found itself on the course, it's called "bitch hill", and as I rounded a tight right corner I could see it in front of me. It's not the biggest hill of the course, and it's not the steepest, but for someone like me, someone who was scraping the bottom of the barrel, someone who had the haggard gleen of defeat in their eyes, a hill of this caliber meant death.

It was a race of many firsts, and for the first time in a competition I stopped and put my head on my outstretched arms. I couldn't move my legs. The lactic acid permeated through my cardiovascular system, and I could feel it in my lungs. I could taste it in my breath. It reeked of deprivation. Skiers continued to pass me, but I noticed other skiers who have also stopped on the side of the hill, looking no less dejected than I. After ten seconds or so, I got back into it, and ambled up the remainder of the hill. Keep moving. Keep moving.

40K-
By any standards, I was on the home stretch, and during my last feed stop, I drank a water, a power drink and ate two banana halves. They were frozen, but I carelessly stuffed them into my open mouth, ignoring the ice-cold sensation on my teeth. Best bananas I've ever had.

I stopped again on a hill. My vision began to narrow, and I could see only my skis in front of me. The next 8K  were a blur, and I don't remember much about them.

48K-
What I do remember, is that wave-4 skiers continued to pass me with regular ease. For the first time I let myself picture finishing the race. I think I can make two kilometers. I looked over at a skier next to me. He was a big guy, maybe 6-2, and he reminded me of an eastern Massachusetts master skier. He had to be in his late 40's or early 50's and everything he was wearing was expensive, from his skis to his glasses, all the way down to his high-tech water-bottle holder and the Volvo I'm sure he has parked in the driveway. I could see pain in his face, and I knew that he was hurting as much as I was. Under any other circumstances I would have tucked in behind this guy, and blasted around him with 1K remaining, leaving him in my snowy dust wondering what happened. But for the time being, I had to send out hate-beams and hope I could out-glide him on downhills, because he was beating me to the top of every hill.

My mental state was starting to deteriorate noticeably at this point. Not only did I feel physically tired, but I'm also beginning to experience a sleepy grogginess. When I tucked down a hill, I let my eyes shut and wonder what it would be like to go to sleep.

More people started to appear on the sides of the trail and I turned a corner to the greatest sight of my life: the lake.

49K-
The lake represents the final segment of the race. The trail mercifully exits the northern Wisconsin forest and carves a perfectly flat line onto Hayward Lake. There was a linear swath of black dots in front of me, leading the way home like the yellow brick road, ending one kilometer away in downtown Hayward.

The best way I can explain bonking is by using the rechargable battery analogy. The first 10K might have drained all of my energy, but with some downhills and some drink to recover, I can recharge up to 90%. But each time I use the battery, it charges up a little less the next time. At this point I could use my legs for about 5-8 seconds before I needed to get back into the classic tracks and double pole. So that became my new pattern. Double pole until my arms were tired, then skate for 8 seconds. Then 7 seconds. Then 5. Each time I kicked or poled I released a breathy grunt. I can't slow down. 1K left. I've got tears in my eyes. Give me a break, I said to myself, but my body was slowly shutting down on me.

50K-
I told Nels before the race that "there's always something left in the tank", referring to the way that the sight of a finish line can cause you to find that last little morsel of energy that your body had been oh-so-wisely saving from you. As I made the 10 foot elevation climb off of the lake, and onto the snow-groomed streets of downtown Hayward, WI, I wanted to find that last morsel.

The sides of the trail/street were fashioned with gates, with hundreds of spectators and racers cheering on. I could actually see the finish line, and I started to skate again. And my legs felt great. I passed about five people, and was only about 200 meters from the finish line when the morsel ran out.

My quads started cramping, and I couldn't control the timing of my leg kicks. Each time I tried to push I felt a sharp pain that would stand me up straight. I'm not sure what you would call my technique as I crossed the line, but "hobbling on skis" is probably apropos.

Cheering on the sidelines were Kaj and Nels. "It looks like Ollie might have bonked", said Kaj as he watched me "ski" to the finish. "Oh yeah" said Nels.

Crossing the finish line was a mix of relief and anger. Anger at myself for joining this race, anger at myself for not training more, but thankfulness that I could take off these skis and get into some warm clothes. Race support came up to me and asked me if I needed help. I almost fell into one of them due to an unplanned leg cramp, so I think he took that as a y-e-s, and called for someone to help him hold me up. A third volunteer took my skis off. "Are you OK?" they asked. I looked at their eyes and I saw genuine concern. "Yeah I'm fine", I said, and picked up my skis, limping out of the finish gates. Nels and Kaj met up with me, and graciously helped me with such mundane tasks as getting my arms into sleeves and not falling over.

Now that I'm stopped, I began to uncontrollably shake. My teeth were chattering like they did at swim practice when I was 8 years old. Nels pointed me to the tent where they are passing out warm soup. He mentioned something about where to meet up, but I wasn't paying attention. All I could focus on was the warm bowl of chicken noodle soup.

As I stood there, in the middle of a massively packed tent, I noticed all the other skiers around me. Some of them shivering, some of them talking and joking about the race. Others telling stories about high-speed crashes on the course.

Right next door was the medical tent. And in there were people in far worse shape than I. My shivers dissipated after a second bowl of soup, but there were skiers with frostbite, hypothermia, and more serious conditions that needed medical attention.

I can't imagine what it would take to conquer the Birkebeiner with any less training that I had. Or any less fitness. Or slower skis. But there were hundreds of people who did that. Thousands. It was a humbling experience to think about, and I kind of felt like a wimp. Because, man, that was really hard.

Who am I kidding. That SUCKED. But maybe it sucked enough to get me back out on my skis again and train for next year.

No comments: