This past weekend Jess and I road tripped it back to the North woods of WI for the American Birkebeiner ski marathon. The “Birkie” is a point to point race from Cable to Hayward and the largest nordic ski race in North America. The course is a point to point jaunt of 50k from Cable to Hayward. This is the Boston Marathon of nordic skiing! From olympic level skiers to people out on the trail for 6+ hours, if your into Nordic skiing… northern WI is the place to be on the last weekend of February.


Here I am at the finish line the day before the race. This is on Main St, Hayward.

It was brutally cold race day, with temps at -13deg. This meant I had to alter my clothing options, but I actually ended up overdressing and being a bit warm. Sugoi makes some awesome stuff! Its amazing how warm you can be while nordic skiing. Better warm than frozen though!

Nothing like the smell of Pure-Fluoro on race morning

Game Time

I believe this shot is at “OO” or the midpoint of the race
After the start of the race which is so so so hard I settled into this nice group you see here. It’s really fun actually feeling like you are racing. Its much like bike racing with drafting, taking pulls, and attacking. As you can see from the photo everyone I am with is in there “onesies” race suit. I went with the “I don’t want to freeze my nuts off” approach- and utilized a windproof pant. So as we are skiing along in the pack one of the guys says to me “looks like you could win the pants division!” I really got a chuckle out of that, even though he was kind of knocking me. LOL! Unfortunately; this was right before the last big climb of the race at 39k and I got dropped hard! The last 10k were quite the struggle and I easily lost well over 100 positions.

Of course a celebratory shot ski.

All in all quite pleased with my race; finishing in 2:34 at 310 overall, besting my previous time by 10 minutes.
I tracked the race with my Timex Global Trainer Resulting in these stats:



Heart rate pretty much pinned the whole way! You can see right at 39k where I blew up!
Special thanks to sponsors that made this race possible:
Timex: Global Trainer
Ford: Ford Flex
Sugoi: clothing
Nathan Products: hydration pack
Powerbar: nutrition product