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.

The Birkie (1-25K)

The most appropriate way to describe the Birkebeiner is to break it up by kilometer. In a race so long, the storyline can change three times or more from start to finish, giving it the quality of an episodic adventure.

Arrival:
Due to the annually congested traffic in small town Cable, WI, we arrived at the athlete drop-off area about 10-15 minutes before Nels's actual start time. This wasn't the ideal time-frame Nels was hoping for, but it did provide for some last-minute excitement, including watching him jump out of the back door of the bus and getting  scolded by the bus driver. Needless to say, he missed his start, but the race was managed with chip-timing so it turned out to be more of an inconvenience than anything. That was the last time I saw him for the next four hours.
  Somehow, per usual, I took my sweet time getting ready for the start (45 minutes later), and just barely strapped my second ski grip on when the starting gun went off. Luckily, the time that elapsed between the gunshot and the person in front of me actually moving was another 2.5 hours, so I had plenty of time to get everything in order.
  Starting in wave 5 was an interesting situation. The Birkebeiner is broken up into skate and classical skiing (mostly the prior), and each discipline is broken up into waves so the race course won't be too congested. With a total attendance of 8,700 racers, congestion is inevitable, but organizers do a great job at mitigating it. The way they do this is by seeding each skier by their finish time from the previous year, or by an officially-sanctioned qualifying race earlier in the year. This way, they can break up the pack by speed, sending the fastest first, and have each heat of 500-900 skiers start at 10 minute intervals.
  I started in wave 5 and want to give all of the readers ample evidence for pending excuses I will soon present for not winning the race. Or coming in top 100. Or 300.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here, let's start the play-by-play.

1K-
After a relaxed and slow start, I'm in great spirits. Despite the cold temps (~0F), the sun was out, and I felt good. Not only that, but the pace was AMAZING (AKA slow). Seeing as how I didn't give myself enough time to warm up (zero seconds), this casual saunter through the first leg of the course will get me up to speed, cardio-wise, and then I can make a move when the field starts to thin out.

2K-
I've already passed a dizzying number of wave 5 skiers. Each skier's bib number starts with the number of their wave, and has an associated trim color. Nels gave me some advice from his experience last year, which was to "ski relaxed", so I planned to do just that. I kept my technique non-labored and smooth, relying on slow long kicks and long glides. I felt great. I was passing people like it was my job.

3K-
(Don't worry, there isn't a post for every kilometer)
The first section of the Birkie traverses "the powerlines", which are a typical source of cross country trails in the US. It's easy to groom a course on land that the government already paid to deforest. I had studied the elevation profile of the course the night before and was fully aware that the first 15k contained most of the climbing for the race. On the first few hills I could feel the burn in quads, but attributed the sensation to not warming up.

4.5K-
We turned into the woods, and I am still surrounded on all sides by a sea of red-colored bibs. My late starting position meant that I needed to pass hundreds of skiers to get some fresh air up front and stretch out my legs. At this point though, I wasn't panicking. It's a long race, and you can do more harm than good by pushing the pace so early. As I round the first turn into the woods, I see a mass of skiers and spectators obstructing the trail. My first reaction was that of alarm. It was hard not to see this type of gathering and assume that someone was terribly injured. As I got closer, I started to see plastic Dixie cups strewn about the snow and realized that I had arrived at the first of 8 feed stations. Water, powerdrinks, sliced bananas and oranges were being offered by the race crew, and the skiers swarmed like flies to either size of the feed zone. There was no way I was slowing down this early in the race, and I took full advantage to weave through the crowd with care. I estimated that I passed about 50 skiers in five seconds. Not bad. I contemplated taking a swig of my "emergency mix" that I was carrying in a water-bottle holder, but it was still to early. I still need to focus on moving forward through the pack.

Intimidation is half the battle

~10K
Throughout the large climbs that accentuate the start of the race, I have not once been able to ski at my own pace. Each hill followed the same format.
1) Weave through traffic at high speeds.
2) See everyone stopped at upcoming hill
3) Slam on the brakes and stop at the bottom
3) Pick a line to stand in, and move up the hill at the pace of the slowest skier ahead of you
4) Start a conversation with the guy/girl standing next to you
5) Wish that person good luck and take off when you get to the top.

On one hill I complimented a gentleman on the festive blue wig he was wearing. As I was about to take off at the top of the hill, he noticed my Olaf ski suit and shouted "I go to Olaf right now!". I yelled back "Good luck!" and then began to play a high speed game of Frogger on the trail. I was actually starting to enjoy the pace. The hills were slow enough that I wasn't getting tired (at all), and I could show off some top speed and zoom around people at the top. Fun!

15K-
The course is now on a gradual decline, and I have already passed a considerable number of wave 4 skiers, and I'm starting to see wave 3 (those who started 20 minutes prior). Someone on the sidelines shouts "I've only seen a couple other 5's! Go 5!". What he was telling me was that I was top-3 in my wave at this point, which was encouraging news, because I was pining for some open trail. It also meant that I might be in better shape than I had hoped! Spirits are still high. I've gone through three feed zones now, without stopping, and estimate that I have passed at least 200 skiers because of this. I don't want to get cocky though, so I take my first sip from my emergency mix, and chew down a frozen goo pack.

Emergency "Anti-Bonk" Mix (16 oz.):

• 1 part Red Bull
• 1.5 parts Gatorade
• 2 parts water
• Two ibuprofen liquigels (opened and squeezed into the mixture)

Because of the temperature, I need to keep the water-bottle upside down in my holder. This is a winter athlete trick so the top layer of the drink doesn't freeze over. As I take a pull of the elixir, I taste slush, and can see the ice layer forming on the bottom. This started earlier than I had hoped. It must still be colder outside than I thought.

20K- 
I no longer feel great, but I don't feel bad yet either. I call this time in the race as "the zone". I have settled into a moderate pace that my body feels comfortable with. I now lack that childish exuberance that had me jovially cracking jokes with other skiers in the first 10K. The race has become more internalized, and I keep my focus on staying efficient. Right in front of me, I see another wave 5 skier. I see this as a great sign. It means I am still reeling in the leaders from my wave. A little voice in my subconscious, a pesky little pessimistic nay-sayer, who had been quiet so far in the race, began to whisper a word of warning. Don't try to draft him, it says, race your own race. You might go too fast if you try to run him down. I listened to the voice. I watched the skier in front of me, and he was "skiing strong" (as they say). His technique was marginal, and his sloppy upper body motion led me to believe he was probably a freshman in college. His hips were on a swivel, and his arms were all out of whack. But despite all of his dynamic flaws, he was moving at a good pace. He had strong legs, and I could tell that he wasn't tired. I didn't feel all that fatigued yet, but I was definitely not feeling strong. In fact, to be honest, I haven't felt strong since college.

18.5K-
I stopped at a feed stop for the first time, downed some warm energy drink, and scooted back into traffic.

25K-
My water-bottle is starting to freeze considerably. I squirt whatever is left into my mouth on a series of winding downhills and flats. I can't see myself, but I imagine that my Buff is covered in ice around my chin, and I have a considerable amount of frozen snot under my nose. My feet hurt, but that is par for the course. After a 60 mile rollerski 10 years ago, my feet have never been the same and I tend to lose sensation in my toes once the temperature drops below 15 degrees. After a series of back-and-forths with the poor-technique wave-5 skier, I suck up my pride and let him go ahead of me. If this were a 30K race, I would be on him like glue, but I need to conserve my energy and ski smoothly.

As I near the 25K marker of the course, I start to feel something in my quads. It's a sensation that I have been dreadfully anticipating. I had jokingly predicted to Kaj before the race that "I'm going to push the pace for 30K, bonk, and then drag my sorry ass the rest of the 20 kilometers".

As that 25K marker slowly passes to my left I feel the dull aching in my legs. The aching isn't constant, and I only feel it on the steep uphill. The sensation I have at this point is unmistakable. After thousands of hours of distance training throughout my life, I have learned how to read my body's hints and signals. I'm starting to bonk. I reach for my water-bottle, which is a useless cube of frozen caffeine and NSAIDS. I rip off my last goo packet and squeeze as much of the frozen goodness into my mouth. I can only get about half of it out using my teeth. It tastes good, but I want more.

I haven't bonked yet, not all of the symptoms have presented themselves. But I do know that the game has changed completely. I no longer have any aspirations of a reasonable time, but I do know that the aching in my legs can be mitigated if I am careful. I need to slow down a little bit, and focus even more on skiing efficiently.

I think about the fact that I am 25K into the race. Where I was once excited to be halfway to the finish, I'm now filled with a quiet dread. I didn't know it at the time, but there was still 6K until the next feed station.

I'm only halfway there.

Birkie Fever and Chills (part deux)

It's February 23rd. Three days before the Birkie.

I was told by a track coach in high school that it takes 8 days for a specific workout to have an impact on your fitness. According to that rule, anything I do from here forward will only hurt the freshness of my legs. This was also the same coach that tried to motivate our team via the inspirational methods of accounting. "It's like you're making a deposit into the bank account!", he would say enthusiastically to a room of blank-faced students. So who knows how true that is.

Sunday was my last-ditch effort for any sort of fitness going into this race. I slogged my way around a shortened, icy track for almost three hours. The sun went down, and I was still there, cranking around the loop with a look of spellbound fatigue in my eyes. I silently was praying that my coach was wrong, and that I would be able to reap the benefits of this workout in time for the 50K. Maybe it's 7 days? 6?

Needless to say, if the skiing community had Birkie fever over the past couple of weeks, it has now been replaced by the chills. There's no more time to say "Oh I'll get in a workout tomorrow", or "I'll just race myself into shape!". Nope. Now it's 8,700 skiers drinking beer and melting $700 worth of fluorinated wax into their skis, cursing to themselves, and breathing in borderline toxic fumes.

"But just go out and ski it for fun!" you say "Just enjoy the experience".

Oh what a world that would be. What a fantastic and wonderous world I would live in, if I could just ski the course, passing out flowers, helping the elderly up big hills, and smile and wave to spectators. I would let people pass me, and get joy from the fact that they felt good about themselves. Heck, I could even stop and have a snack break. It's just a race! Enjoy it!

As great as this nordic utopia sounds on paper, it would crumble like a house of cards the moment I heard the  starting gun. As soon as that gun goes off, no matter who is next to me, no matter how I was feeling prior, no matter WHAT, I will devolve to a single-minded automaton of competitive energy. If you're in my way, prepare to have your poles broken. Drafting me? Prepare to get cut off. Are your skis faster than mine? Well, then...you suck, there's nothing I can do about that.

So I would like to offer a formal apology right now to my legs, for pending hurt-fest. Because when 75 year old Bjorn Bjornson passes me on a downhill at 40K, there's no way I'm going to let that old man beat me to the line...

Birkie Fever and Chills (part 1)

Last fall I proclaimed, quite brazenly, that this winter would be "the comeback" for my ski career. I had planned on ramping up my training, racing myself into shape, and opening up a 6-pack of whoop-ass on the 50-kilometer, season-capping Birkebeiner race. Fun tidbits about this proclamation. Firstly, a comeback requires to actually have been there. Secondly, the phrase "ski career" is an misnomer in the US, and the two words "ski" and "career" should not allowed anywhere near each other, unless "-lled mechanic" is inserted in between them.

But if mice and men, the best laid plans often go awry, and my lofty dreams of 3-hour skis and local race domination have turned into afternoons at work and evenings hunching over books. Scratch that. Evenings watching TV, and telling myself that I need to start hunching over the books in about 10 minutes. Or as soon as this show is over. Let me just see what's on Comedy Central. I'm hungry.

Whatever the case was, I was certainly not going to schlep all of my ski stuff over to the course just to freeze my feet off in -20F winds. Especially when I had so much work to do. Oh, is Top Chef on?

So here I am, faced with my February 26th planned piece de resistance (french for: $100 non-refundable commitment) for this ski season: a 50K race from Cable to Hayward Wisconsin called the American Birkebeiner. This race is so long that you need to adjust your watch to the new time-zone to see what your finish time is. I've heard of skiers coming of the woods not knowing what year it was, clearly wearing last years bib, and looking rather gaunt and unkempt. I mean, this is the real deal. So with the prospect of engaging on this glycogen-depleting crusade in little over a week, I have hit a critical juncture. With the amount of "training" that I have done so far this winter I can either 1) Panic, or 2) lower my expectations (considerably). While both of these options seem perfectly acceptable, I chose option 3, which is a healthy combination of 1 and 2.

More on this later.