Last year’s Birkie presented all kinds of obstacles just
getting to the start on time and I barely made it with only 5 minutes to spare,
no warm up ski or wax testing and Alex missed hers. This year, no bad driving,
no near disasters, the Birkie solved the bus problems and instead of a foot of
new snow which there was only an inch or two of new snow the whole trip and
race went very well.
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| Coming over the Birkie Bridge, last target in site (Birkie Photo) |
After a quick visit with my cousin in the Twin Cities I
headed off, sorry that Lisa wasn’t with me since she was recovering from her
hip injury and Evan, who had bowed out this year since he was applying to grad
schools. The only excitement on the
drive up was watching a guy in front of me veer once, twice and then finally on
the 3rd time right off the road and down into the ditch on a dead
flat, perfectly straight road.
Fortunately he didn’t roll over and when I ran down to check on him he
was already on the phone seeking help. I
checked one more time with him and then moved on. Perhaps he’d had a Wisconsin
breakfast beverage or three??? Snow was
coming down pretty heavily as I rolled into town, not a bad thing as there
really wasn’t a lot on the ground on the drive up, and checked out the new
bridge we’d have to ski up that went up and over the main road, a new and final
last hill onto Main St. I managed to get
out of the expo with my wallet intact but picked up a pair of One Way poles to
deliver to one of the CSU Jrs from Geoff Hurwich, long-time CSU friend who gave
us a great deal on One Way equipment this year.
Next up was some skiing and wax testing at the OO trail head before the
rest of the drive north to the shores of The Big Sea Water, Gitche Gumee. The skiing was very nice and verified that
Toko blue was going to be just fine for kick.
After 45 min. of very pleasant and not so cold skiing I headed off
toward Ashland , hard by the very frozen shores
of Lake Superior . When a lake that big (it holds 3 quadrillion
gallons!) is frozen solid as far as you can see and people are driving their
big trucks across the ice to their bob houses to fish you know you are in a
place that gets cold, really cold, and stays cold. Tom Simon, who’s brother lives in Ashland , invited me over
for a carbo load dinner which made for a fun evening as stories started flying. Tom’s family and most of both brothers
families were skiing either the Kortolopett or the full Birkie which is so
great and pretty typical of the Birkie.
The good food and great company made for a great and early evening.
Birkie morning I awoke at 4:45 having spent half the night
worried about the logistics of getting to the start on time. I needn’t have worried. I managed to down some coffee, instant
oatmeal and a bagel and headed out the door for the drive to Cable, trying to
cram more calories into my mouth to stave off any pending bonks. No cars on the road in front of me all the
way to Cable! Awesome! The short bus ride to the old and now closed
Telemark Lodge went off without a hitch and I made the walk down to the start. It was snowing and cold, but no wind this
year. So many people were already
there! I waited in line at the Avenue
de Porta Potty then got down to business of testing my skis (perfect, no touch
ups needed) and on to the start after dropping my bag and 5 chilly minutes in
the pens. Wave 1 start was a bit
different from Wave 5 last year. When
the rope lifted in the 2nd corral I had to sprint with skis and
poles in hand to the starting line. No
gentle jog this year to the front line.
I ended up 4 rows back and then let Alex’s old teammate Adam St . Pierre
ahead. 5 min. later the banners lifted
and off we went. It was snowing pretty
hard at this point and so we had half-filled tracks to contend with. The half filled tracks meant leading was not
the best tactic and pretty soon the peleton narrowed down to 2 and then 1 good
track as we hit the first hills on the powerline. My skis seemed a bit slick on the kick side
of things and I had to work to make them work, but I was running up the backs
of those in front of me on the downhills.
5 km in the snow stopped falling and my kick immediately improved as the
track got skied in. For many kilometers
there was lots of jockeying for position.
I focused on staying smooth and not thrashing around as we went through
the rollers, past the drummers and off into the woods. There were 3 tracks, one completely unused,
one that was slower and was used mostly for passing and one skied in
track. Not ideal with all these skiers
trying to move up! If I got gapped a bit
on some of the uphills I could pull it back on the downhills. So nice to just get in a tuck and let them
run! Once things settled down and a good
group formed I started really having fun going back and forth and slowly
catching and spitting out the back some of those over-eager starters who
couldn’t maintain the pace. Occasionally
we’d get a glimpse of the skaters over on their trail as we rolled toward the
high point of the course about 13 km in.
The feeds were crazed with skaters and classic skiers coming together,
yelling out what you wanted, trying not to get GUs stuck to the bottom of your
skis and of course, not crashing in to each other. Mass confusion! I made darned sure I got GU whenever I could
and Gatorade or whatever. No bonk…..
A bit before half way I was really getting in a good groove
and skiing better and better while some of those with me started to flag a
bit. One guy was quick on the uphills
but drove me nuts because he’d stand up too soon after a downhill and to avoid
him I’d have to pop out of the track or run up his backside or switch
tracks. Just after OO the skate and
classic trails come together for good and I made my move on a really nice long,
fast downhill and left my group arrears.
I then managed to latch on to one of the elite women in a pink polka dot
suit (rather easy to follow!) who was skiing really smoothly so I hopped in
with her for several k, but while she was great uphill, on the downhills the
Fat Man just had too much of an advantage and finally I went by and moved
on. Somewhere around this time I yelled
to Terry as he skated by “Go CSU”. We
exchanged greetings and he slowly pulled away to have an excellent finish. I was fighting off a few moments of tiredness
here and there, so it was good to see Terry, but also on every downhill I’d
recover. My race was going well! Wax was still good, I was focused on driving
my legs up the hills and carrying every bit of speed possible on the downhills
and staying hydrated at the feeds. The
last big steep uphill, Bitch Hill as it is fondly known, where there is always
a crowd and you can do shots (I would
fall over dead if I ever tried that!) wasn’t too bad this year as I trudged up
the long herringbone with the reward of a nice ride down afterwards! I started the push to the finish and the last
longish uphills where I started to poop out last year and get wobbly. I stayed focused and went into full Vulture
mode, hauling in a few people on the last of these and then focused on downhill
speed to the lake. I was flying down
these last hills which was oh so nice, prepping myself for the big 2km push
across Lake Hayward Main
St . A nice
little downhill off the bridge, some kick DP and I’d knocked off one more as I
skied through the finish with Peter Graves announcing my name (and that I came
from Geneva , Switzerland
I’d had a good, solid race, left nothing out there, my skis
were great and I’d hit my goal of the M7 podium in 3rd. With 1st and 2nd only a
minute ahead and 4th and 5th only a minute behind it
turns out the M7 age group was packed in much tighter than any other age group
in the race! And, we’d gotten really
lucky with the weather. Two days before
the race the sprints were cancelled due to the extreme cold and the morning
after it was -10F and windy when I woke.
A last hour ski at OO in immaculate conditions and then off to the airport
and the flight home. An excellent
weekend adventure!
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