American Birkebeiner 2008

The American Birkebeiner is a cross-country ski race that has been held in the North Woods of Wisconsin for thirty-five years. It is the largest cross-country ski race in North America. It attracts over 9,000 racers and 15,000 spectators each year. That is a pretty good number considering the town where the race finishes has a population of around 2000 people. The course spans 50 Km from Cable to Hayward Wisconsin through the woods and across a frozen lake.

After my first attempt at cross-country skiing in December, I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the Birkie. Well, actually the shorter version which is a 12Km race still ending at the same finish line as the Birkie. So Dea and I signed up. She actually talked me in to it because she was planning to come up and visit some of her family in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

I started the leg endurance/strengthening exercises, tried skiing another time and then invested in some cc skis of my own. Lisa, a friend from my life group, joined the 12Km race as well. The Prince Haakon 12 Km race was name after the Norwegian prince who was rescued by his father. His father ended up skiing approximately 50 Km on wooden cross country skis with his son strapped to him. They actually re-enact this every year at the beginning of the race.

So the time crept up on us and before we knew it, it was race weekend. The forecast called for a beautiful weekend...with a high of 26 degrees F....that is warmer than we had seen in a while. However, the low for the morning was -1 degrees F. Thankfully, our race started at 1:30pm. Lisa and I found some other people from church who were planning on doing the race so we rode up together, approximately a 5 hour drive from Madison. This is the faithful crew of "Birkie '08".

We did encounter several bumps along the road. My friend was nice enough to offer us a bed in his cabin. However, once we opened the cabin we shortly realized that the pipes were frozen....so no running water!

Karl, Lisa, Jill and I set off the next morning to get Karl to his race, the 23Km race. Karl was the guy who had been training hard for three months, had taken several lessons, had his heartrate monitor and GPS system strapped on to track everything during the race. However, he did forget one crucial part, his ski boots. We still had time to make it back to the cabin before the race. So we set off. However, we were slowed down by a cop that decided we were following too close behind the car in front of us. We were beginning to push the limit of getting Karl back for the start of his race. Next, we're on the road to the cabin and the road is blocked due to the race. Karl thought maybe he could rent skis from the ski store; unfortunately, the ski store was closed on the biggest race of the year. So Karl's hopes for getting to the race were crushed.



Lisa and I met up with Dea and we loaded the bus to the drop off for our race. I was starting to get a little nervous at this point. I just didn't want to get in someone's way , since during my training I had taken some spills. Dea had no fear, even though her first time on cc skis was the day before.

We took off. There were people dressed as Vikings and in other costumes. It was a pleasant race. I did take a few splills on some of the downhills. One time I was going much faster than the guy in front of me and all I could think to yell was..."track!" To let him know that I was fast approaching him. He didn't budge. So I jumped off and fell to the side since my best attempts at slowing myself down included falling.

One technical difficulty involved me taking off my skis (because I thought that would be a better idea than falling all the way down, and it wasn't against the rules...I saw others doing it as well). I ran down the hill and started to put my skis back on, but they wouldn't clip in to the binding. Apparently, ice was stuck in the binding and it took me a good 15 minutes to dislodge the ice. Thankfully, Dea came to my rescue. She came up and asked the first person she saw to help us. Joe, my good Samaritan, stopped and helped me get the last bit of ice out of my binding. Dea went on her way as I finished up getting the skis on with Joe. I got on my way relieved I would not have to carry my skis across the finish line. I quickly came up on Dea as we were both going down a low-grade hill. I began to realize that I was going to hit Dea, so I shouted the first thing that came to my mind, "Dea, Track!" Dea fearful tried to jump out of the tracks but it was too late, my skis had already ran over her skis. We had a good laugh at our tumble.

So we made it the whole 12Km. We finished up the race at the warming tent with a fresh Wisconsin Ale and a brat..hey, that's a normal way too finish a race according to the Norwegians.



After we recovered, I said my "good-byes" and we loaded up in the car again. We took off to another friend's cabin. There we ate and danced the night away. Lisa and I had to see an official Wisconsin townie bar before we left. We hit the dance floor there for a bit, but we were all starting to hit the wall.

The next morning Karl got the water running so we cleaned the cabin and made our way back home. We were all on a "high" from the weekend. About an hour away from Madison I got a call from my mom letting me know my dad was in the hospital. It's crazy how quickly the rug can be pulled out from underneath your feet. Thankfully, he is ok. He has struggled with swallowing problems since his radiation treatment to his throat about 10 years ago. We're still taking it one day at a time. It's really hard being so far away.