American Birkebeiner Breakthrough!
Summary…pretty much a perfect day!
Sometimes everything just seems to come together, and somehow it did for me last Saturday. I've been Nordic skiing for about 5 years, and my results have been steadily improving. Last year was my first Birkebeiner and I finished pretty much right at the median. This year on a much tougher course I almost cracked the top quartile. I felt great almost the whole race, and I finished ahead of some friends that I've never been close to beating before. I don't know whether it was the skis, the fitness, the mindset, or what, but it was one of my best race experiences ever! I honestly don't know what I did that led to the breakthrough, so I'm going to tell you a long story and see what folks think.
The Birkebeiner
For those of you not up the curve on Nordic skiing, the Birkie is the largest Nordice ski race in North America. It's 50K, has almost 1,400 meters of vertical gain, and draws about 8000 people to rural Wisconsin. The race runs from Cable to Hayward through forest, up and down hills, and eventually across Hayward Lake and onto Main Street in Hayward. It's an iconic race with a very rich history! If you've ever wanted to do a truly epic winter sports event, figure out how to do this one. It's an amazing experience.
My preparation…was it this?
This year I did much more pre-season skiing work. Skiing well requires long glide (think speed skating) which requires good balance. It also requires good upper body strength. Starting in summer I did 2-3 days a week of balance work and upper body work. I did one-legged squats and long minutes of one-legged balance on one of those balance cushions. I also did lots of pushups (built up to ~150/day) and built a roller board to mimic double poling. I also picked up some used roller skis and did quite a few sessions on those in the fall. I would give myself a B+ for pre-season prep.
I did NOT join the November OS like I did last year, but instead kept doing my strenght/ski specific work. We got skiable snow in mid-December, and once I got on the snow I realized that my fitness wasn't where I needed it to be, and I was way behind where I was last year. I jumped into the January OS and kept skiing on the weekends.
I hosted ski camp at my cabin over MLK weekend and did a "big ski" weekend with 60-70K of skiing over 3 days. I've been primarily a freestyle (or skate) skier, but this year I bought classic skis and started doing about 40% of my ski work on those skis. It's a totally different motion, but seems to be really helpful in developing upper body strength as well as balance. Seems like the classic skiing has been a good way to just get better at skiing generally.
In general the only thing I think I did differently this year was that I skied a little less during the week, but my weekend skis were longer. I was doing 2-2.5 hours of classic skiing on Saturday and 2-3 hours of skate skiing on Sundays. I would say if I added it up I probably did at least 50% more total time on skis in prep for the race.
My other big prep effort was the City of Lakes Loppet. The Loppet is the only urban ski race in North America and it's held essentially on my "home track". This year they did a 42K classic race on Saturday and a 42K skate race on Sunday. I did both races. My classic placing was bottom quartile because my technique just isn't that great. My skate race finish was ~56th percentile, so not too good, and lower than previous years. In the 3 weeks between the Loppet and the Birkie, I did several more 2-3 hour skate sessions, but that's about it.
As we got closer to the Birkie, I felt like my fitness was pretty good. I was going up "hard" hills really easily, seemed to be managing longer hills without too much effort, and just felt good on my skis. I was cautiously optimistic heading into the race that I was poised for a great race.
Ski prep…maybe it was the skis?
I had my skis prepped and waxed by Boulder Nordic. They did a great job for me last year, so I put my skis in their hands again this year. Whatever they did, it really worked well. From the gun I felt like my skis were really fast, and I was literally blowing by people going down hills in the middle of the race. Not only did this give me lots of places, but it was a huge mental advantage. From the first few K's I was telling myself, "I've got fast skis, I've got fast skis…". It was really awesome!!
The race itself…was it my execution?
The race has 9 waves, and I was seeded (based on last year's result) in wave 4. There were essentially 5 minutes between waves. It was super cold (-1F at the start), super windy (15-20 mph), and we had gotten 8-10" of new snow on the Thursday before the race. All the snow made the course really slow because instead of just cranking along on a nice firm track, your skis were sinking in every stroke, and you also had to lift the skis through the snow constantly. It was obviously going to be a very slow day on the course.
The first 13K of the course is pretty significant net gain UP. There are a couple of huge climbs, and I did my best to hold back and ski steady up them. I was working hard, but not going near my redline. I was just getting into a good rhythm and working my way up. I caught up to the back of wave 3 about 5K in and started working my way through that group. I took 1 GU every 10K or so and took ~6 oz of "energy" (I think it was HEED) at the aid stations (every 8-10K). From 13-25 K or so the course is very winding, and although I was skiing well, I don't think I really passed that many people. The course was narrow, and it was hard to pass. We were pretty much walking up double file on the hills, so I wasn't really able to push too hard on the climbs.
At 25K the course begins a series of longer downhills, and it also comes back together with the classic race. The reason this matters is that now there are tracks on one side of the course. I was jumping into the tracks on every downhill, and this is when the fast skis really seemed to make a difference. I was honestly blowing through groups by passing them in the track, double poling up the smaller hills, and then jumping onto the skate track for the longer climbs. Then I would jump back in the tracks, double pole hard to get by people, and just keep pushing forward. I think I passed over 100 people in this middle section. Some combo of fast skis and strong double poling just gave me a great advantage.
I really felt great until about 45K when we came off the trail and into the open. The last 5K or so is flat, including a 3K pull across a lake straight into the wind. By that point I was working my way through the Wave 2 skiers, and there were literally people pulling off the lake, bent over at the waist crying…literally. I sat behind the tallest guy I could find and just worked my way across. At this point I felt like I was at the edge, but I kept pushing on.
I finished in 4:00:29 which was 12' slower than my time from last year. My wave had ~500 people in it, and I was the 10th person to cross the line, so clearly I was on a good day. When I looked closely at the results, I found that the guy that came in 997th (my place) last year did the race in ~3:20, so the snow and cold clearly slowed everyone down. The front guys were 3-4% slower, but it seems like the rest of the field was more like 20-30% slower. Caitlin Gregg won for the women described it as the toughest race of her career. My only regret, given that, was that I didn't push a little harder and break 4 hours!
Results
All in all I could not be happier with my results. I just wish I knew what I did right. I'm honestly not sure whether it was the skis, the prep, or the execution. Whatever it was, though, i hope I can do it again next year. I ended up 997/3769 overall and 108/377 in my AG. My first year I was 2051/3957 and 205/318 in AG. I'm calling a 1000 place improvement a big success!
If anyone wants to weigh in with opinions on what I did right, I'm all ears! Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
Comments
Bill great race. It seems like you did a lot of sport specific prep and increased the weekend long session to that as well. Given the 4h race length the longer training session probably helped a lot. Pumping up the fitness with the OS and a the races prior to this one seemed to get you in a good spot physically for the race. In any event I know nothing about skiing so take my comments for what they are worth.
P.S. I have to check back on our Olympic bet as I don't even recall the sports for sure. There was gold a plenty in the curling and hockey for Canada. I posted a note in the OS but not sure you saw it, beside this probably deserves a double post.
For me, though, it's still all about bumps and powder on my mid-fat downhill rig.
I think all 3 of your variables are co-dependent. Take anyone of the 3 away and the outcome suffers. Poor fitness and you fatigue midway thru. Bad wax and you loose efficiency and waste precious energy. Poor execution, well we all know where that leads.
You had it all and put together an amazing race. Nice work!
@Al: I have done a couple of races where we skied up a downhill run, turned around and went back down. Not bumps but 50mph still gives you a thrill on the skinny skis.
Congrats, Bill! The Birkie is truly a test of your fitness and stamina! Considering the craptastic winter we've endured here, your taking this on is awesome!
I rode my mt bike over part of the Birkie trail last summer - those hills are killer, so I can only imagine how much more intense it was to ski through all the new snow you dealt with!
Thanks for all the positive comments. It's great to be part of a community that appreciates this kind of thing!