American Birkebeiner 2/21/2004
"You can never hope to be the best, you can only hope to be a good 'un." -- McKinley Morganfield
Among the things I remember about an amazing race:
- The skier with the warmup jacket made of previous years' Birkie bibs.
- A woman gliding along wearing a backpack that had a doll with a crown sticking out of it. And a yellow caution sign reading "Caution baby King Haakon on board"
- A racer who had scrawled "Cancer is just another hill" across his bib.
It's the race that looms over every other citizens' race in the United States. Their press releases call it the Boston Marathon of cross country skiing, and they're right. After hearing and reading about it for for years, I succumbed to the urge and flew to Minneapolis. I met fellow Flatland Posse members John Hart and Colin Archer in the Minneapolis airport; Andrey Revyakin flew to Madison, WI with Masha, his fiancee, and drove up from there.
Friday morning it was snowing when we arrived at Telemark Resort, which is near the starting point and which is the finish point for the Korteloppet. It was like going to a circus for skiers. Three different ski companies had demos available; there were wax, boot and pole companies (can you demo ski wax?) with demos. There was a Fischer race service truck. And this was just outside. Inside the main building, there were even more displays. As we skied out for our warmup, there was a kids' race going on. They had an announcer who was so into it that he made the Super Bowl broadcasters sound lame.
The start of the race is at an airport near Telemark Resort. If an oxymoron may be permitted, it was organized pandemonium. A couple thousand skiers milling around, tossing clothing bags into one of the dozens trucks to be ferried to the finish in Hayward. (All of these trucks were owned by local businesses, people who generously volunteered their time so that we can get out and beat ourselves up for a few hours. From the school bus drivers who ferried us to the start; the untold numbers manning the feeds with hot water, cookies and bananas; the Kiwanis members ladling out hot soup at the finish; the Hayward DPW workers who covered Main St with 2 feet of snow -- it takes a lot of people donating their time to make this happen. The deserve our gratitude.) There was a huge tent that served as the warming hut. I knew there had to be a bunch of port-o-johns somewhere, but I could only see one.
After watching the elite skiers take off, I tried to find Andrey in the mass of Wave 1 skiers. There were just too many people. I shouted his name without being able to see him, and went to warm up after Wave 1 started.
When the gun went off for wave 4, I double poled hard and was able to V2 off the front with about 30 other skiers. After a couple of kilometers of flat, we made a big left turn and began to follow a power line uphill. After a feed somewhere around 10 km, we caught the end of the wave that had started ahead of us, at the base of a big hill. There was nothing for it but to herringbone over this one, and find a gap to scoot through at the top. Then double pole hard, until I had room to skate again, picking my way through skiers, until the base of another serious hill with another logjam. This was the way it went until about 25 km, when things began to open up a bit.
Unlike the few kilometers we had skied at the Telemark Resort, the Birkie Trail was one hill after another, undulating south from Cable to Hayward. They weren't all long, and they weren't all steep. But they still add up at the end of the day. The downhills were generally straightforward; you could tuck and go. The trail trends uphill for the first 20 or so kilometers; from there you gradually lose altitude, although there is still plenty of climbing. The woods are mixed deciduous and pine -- very beautiful. Wherever there was an feed station or a road crossing, there were spectators. People's families, a local snowmobile club (snow machine trails cross the Birkie Trail), whatever.
At around kilometer 37 you start seeing Burma Shave-style signs for the infamous Bitch Hill, which John had warned me about. It's only about as tough as the first major climb on Porter Mountain in Lake Placid. But it came at a bad time, kilometer 40, and it pulled my cork. I drank and ate more in this race than I had in any other marathon, but I was beat! It took everything I had to climb the gentle incline following the last feed. Fortunately the last 5 kilometers were primarily flat. Being around all these other skiers and the spectators (who ever heard of spectators at a cross country ski race?) inspired me to dig deep and push out those last kilometers hard.
When you come off the lake on to Main Street in Hayward, the finish line is only a couple hundred meters away, a gentle incline, but it seemed like a mile. People crowded the street on both sides cheering, and I found the gas to nip a couple of skiers at the finish.
I never thought I'd be glad to see one of these things, but there was a volunteer with a hayride type trailer hitched to his ATV, offering racers a ride to the warming tent. I don't think I could have walked the 4 blocks over to it. I found John there, and Colin came soon later. Andrey had finished long before and gone to the Korte finish to meet Masha.
There was a hell of a lot of traveling involved, but it was a great experience. Make the opportunity to go there at least once.