Birkierunner's Group - FULL (Page 7)

Skiing in a train of people is effective if you are on an open course with wind (such as the one on Sunday that was on a lake due to poor trail conditions).  If you get into a good group, everyone will take turns taking a pull for a km or so.  Sometimes you get stuck with someone in the group that doesn't want to do any of the work - leeches.  They are just one notch above pond scum.

tripletmom01 - 2007-02-12 4:50 PM You were 30th out of 400 some?? And you could have done better? Woah Are you out to win the Birkie? Good job!

Thanks.  My only Birkie goal is to finish in the top 200.  That would qualify me for next year's Elite Wave.  I just haven't had a good race at the Birkie in 9 tries.  One year I missed qualifying for the next year's Elite Wave by 50 seconds due to breaking a pole strap at the 36 km mark (50k race).  I'm currently in Wave 1 (behind the Elite) with 500 other skiers - not fun with a mass start.  The Elite Wave is much less congested at the start.

The Birkie is the largest x-c ski race in North America, by far.  Last year there were over 4,200 finishers.  Due to the number of skiers, there are 12 starting waves, separated by 10 minutes between waves.  It is the U.S. representative of the world-wide series of ski marathons called the Worldloppet  http://www.worldloppet.com/   Each country is allowed only one race to be included in the series.  I've only done one other Worldloppet race - the 90km Swedish Vasaloppet.  That is THE biggest race in the world with 15,000 skiers - the start area has 80 sets of tracks (in width) and then narrows down to 4 sets of tracks within 3km. 

You should give x-c skiing a try sometime.  I think it is the best all around exercise there is.

Hope everyone is doing well.  Last week was high pressure.  I was preparing a job application for a job that I've been waiting for the last 10 years.  The guy who had the job in our Division retired on January 3 and I've served as acting in his place since then.  So, I think I have an excellent chance at getting the job.  It will mean a lot more travel, but I'll adapt.

Did a 50k ski race yesterday...small field...finished 8th out of 30 skiers (low attendance due to thin snow probably).  That's me with bib 13 leading a small pack.  However, I did pretty well in relation to some skiers that usually beat me by considerably more than they did yesterday.  That's good news for my upcoming A race next Saturday....the American Birkebeiner.   What is everyone up to?

(Finlandia 2007.jpg)

Hi gang

Well, doing 2 jobs and being on the road a lot the past month has created a situation where I can’t be an effective mentor.  So, this will probably be my one and only stint in the program.

I actually tried to post here on Sunday night when I arrived here in Chattanooga for a meeting and after 20 minutes of typing my Birkie writeup I hit a wrong button on my computer and everything disappeared into cyberspace.  Haven’t had time to get back to try again.  This time I’m typing it in WORD and will cut and paste when I’m done.

The Birkie is a participating race in the worldwide series of ski marathons called the Worldloppet.  Each nation is allowed to be represented by only one race in the Series.  Participating nations are Australia, Czech, Austria, Italy, Germany, Estonia, Japan, Canada, France, USA, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Norway.  I've also competed in the 90 km Swedish Vasaloppet ski race.  If you complete 10 or more races (on at least 2 continents) you become a Worldoppet Master.

Where to begin?  Last Tuesday they say the Birkie course was looking fairly decent after snow shoveling crews worked tirelessly to fill in bare spots. Word was the race would ski the full course to Main St. in Hayward, WI.  On Wednesday they had 52 degrees and light rain….KILLER for a race course.  The Birkie Foundation decided they had to shorten the course from 51 to 25k because the southern half of the course had been hit too hard.  So now we were facing a short, fast race rather than a full ski marathon.  Then on Thursday rumors of race cancellation started to circulate.  We headed to the Birkie Office to get the official status.  The person at the desk told a group of us that if we did not receive 3 inches of new snow on the course by 9PM Friday the race would be cancelled.  Two minutes later another person appeared from the back office and gave another update.  It was decided that they would wait until 9 PM Friday and if there were snow flakes in the air (a storm was approaching) and it looked reasonably certain that snow would continue through the night, then the race would go on. 

We headed back to the cabin we were renting and I began doing final prep of my race skis.  On Friday morning I headed to Telemark Resort where the race begins.  A new rumor was circulating.  Now a decision had been made to definitely hold the race and we wouldn’t have to wait until 9 PM for a decision.  However, there was a big BUT attached to the decision.  It was decided that the Elite Wave (top 200 male and 50 female skiers from last year) would start 2 hours later than normal.  No big deal with that.  However, it was also decided that only the Elite Wave would have a timed event.  Waves 1-12 would not be timed and would instead have an “open course” event…meaning you could start whenever you wanted during a designated 30 minute time window for your wave (they combined waves to have 4 groups of Waves 1-3, 4-6, etc.).  I was in Wave One.

This decision was tough for me to take.  In the past I have come within 50 seconds of placing in the top 200 – broke a pole strap at 36km that year and slowed me down.   In order to qualify for next year’s Elite Wave I had to place in this year’s top 200.  Well, if they weren’t going to time my wave this year, that wouldn’t be possible.  So, I had trained a year to find out that I couldn’t get a qualifying time for next year.  They would credit us with finishing the race, but that was it.  For the Birkie, getting credit for a race completion is huge in itself.  The Birkie is in its 34^th year.  People that raced the first Birkie are called Founders and they are given an honorary red racing bib each year (see below).  Whenever you pass a Founder on the course (they get to start early) it is so cool - you always yell words of encouragement to them.  If you have raced 10 Birkies you get a pretty neat wooden plaque.  If you do 20 Birkies you will then get to wear a purple race bib (below) every year in the future and you achieve what they call Birchlegging status.  Birkebeiner refers to an ancient tribe of Norwegians that played a critical role in saving a baby prince (Prince Haakon) from competing tribes in the civil war during the year 1206.  The baby prince then went on to become King of Norway.  The Norwegian Birkie, called the Birkebeinerrenet, is a 55 km race that traces the route that two of the Birkie warriors used to take the baby Prince Haakon to safety. The warriors wore birch bark on their legs for protection from snow and cold – hence the term Birchlegging.  Hey, I’m not making this stuff up!  So, that’s why getting credit for completing the Birkie is a big deal.  Getting a purple race bib is everyone’s goal.

The race itself was fairly un-eventful. The course conditions were much better than we expected, so we weren’t sure why they couldn’t have timed the event.  Safety considerations I guess.  One of the members of our ski club lost control on a curve and skied off the course and dislocated his hip.  That was the only major injury of all 6,500 racers that day.  Ironically, we got 8" of snow the night after the race.

It was my 10^th Birkie so on Sunday I received my wooden plaque.  Now I’m sitting in a hotel in Chattanooga going through the post-Birkie blues.  So why get so emotional about a ski race?  Its called Birkie Fever.  Once you ski the Birkie, Birkie Fever gets in your blood.  You think about the Birkie every day of the year.  Everything you do training-wise revolves around the Birkie.  You run, bike, roller ski, swim, do triathlons, etc., all year long to get better at next year’s Birkie. The 2008 Birkie countdown has already begun!!

So, now that I’ve bored you to death, how is everyone doing??

Edited by Birkierunner 2007-02-27 10:33 PM

(purple bib.jpg)

(founder bib.jpg)

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purple bib.jpg (42KB - 31 downloads)
founder bib.jpg (28KB - 32 downloads)

My Race Log

tripletmom01 - 2007-02-28 9:14 PM So- what was your "unofficial" time? Were you happy with it? The whole thing sounds crazy to me So how will they decide who gets to be in what waves next year if they didnt take times?? I hope you get over your post race blues

I forgot to punch my watch when I finished, so don't know for sure...somewhere around 1:25 to 1:35.  Doesn't really matter because I took my time at aid stations instead of "racing".  They will use the same top 200 from 2006 for 2008.  For other waves they will use your best time from 2004-2006 to put you in a wave for 2008, so I'll get to stay in wave one.  Usually takes a month to get over the blues...I get it bad.