February 26th, 2008
So yeah. I finished 29th at the Birke. It’s hard to be too excited about that, though not having much time to train and never having been much of a 50 km skater it is hard to be too disappointed either.
The race was actually as close to fun as racing gets. We had huge energy at the start line, with almost 7000 racers lined up to start over the course of almost two hours. It was cold–not bitter cold, but cold enough to very carefully time taking of our warm-ups. The hardest part of the race is not the start, or the renamed-to-be-family-friendly “Bee Hill,” or the push over the top of the course. No, the hardest part is waiting at the line for them to let us go. I ended up relegated to the third row, but it didn’t really matter. We took off, and I was part of a huge mass of racers, and then things settled down and I could ski.
The only other time I did this race was the year Johann Muehlegg won. Muehlegg was doped to the gills–so doped he might have literally had gills. So he went so hard that at three kilometers, where the course turns from the power lines where it starts, the field had already broken up. I was in 10th place there that year within a kilometer or two couldn’t see the skiers in front of or behind me.
This year was different. There were probably over 50 of us still tight together when we left the power lines. The Birke course is wide and wonderfully groomed, but it turns out it is only really wide enough for two lines of skiers, with a little room for a third line in some places if you really need to pass. I wasted a little energy trying to get nearer the front as I assumed a big attack was coming soon.
It wasn’t. We skied like this for a long time. I got great feeds from the Salomon support staff, including one that had to be thrown to me after we almost botched it; it was a neat feeling to grab a bottle out of the air like that.
By the time we reached Highway OO (the close to halfway point) I knew I was in trouble. I was still solidly in the pack, but was hanging near the back and just hoping no one would attack. There were a couple of weaker skiers near me holding one by dint of amazing skis. I had good skis, average in the lead group at least, but not the kind of skis that can save you from yourself. I hunkered down, trying to stay attached to the group for one more kilometer, and one more, and one more.
One of the CXC skiers broke a pole, a long way from any help. I thought I was set to pick of a place, but he held on. This was both demoralizing and galvanizing. I resolved that I would not be dropped by a skier with one pole. I wasn’t, but after he finally received a new pole I made it only a kilometer or two more before dropping off the pace.
I had counted the skiers in the pack several times, always finding 29. For the last 17 kilometers of the race I saw no one in front of me or behind me (except a few glipses of Andrew Johnson a minute ahead of me on the lake), and when I saw the results sheet I found that my counting is a lot better than my skiing.
Still, despite the travel headaches and the disappointment, I’ve still got the Fever. I’ll be back next year for another go. And the year after that. And more–my teammates declared me the most likely to be skiing the race when I am 80, and I don’t know that I can disagree…
