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.