Birkebeinerrennet

Realized that it’s been a month since my last post. It’s not that I didn’t do much in between, but more that I kinda got tired of writing about my travels outside Norway/was too busy to sit down and write about things. Traveling with Luke and Ben around Stockholm and Warsaw was a real fun trip, as well as having Clancy Farrand visit during the World cup racing up at Oslo! But I don’t really wanna write about it cause we did so many things and the post would drag on. I am adding the photos though, so take a look in the gallery!

An event this past weekend encouraged me to hop back into writing mode. A month ago I found an annual race called the Birkebeineret, which starts in Rena and ends 54 km (33.5 miles) away in Lillehammer. The ski marathon commemorates the Birkebein loyalists who transported the heir to the Norwegian throne cross-country to safety (you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkebeiner). After doing some research I decided to sign up! I’ve never done any sort of long distance skiing event before, so I thought it would be a pretty cool experience. The closest thing to it that I’ve accomplished is probably the Presidential traverse that our XC nordic team does every summer, which is about 20 miles of hiking over 8ish hours. So I was up for a challenge like that!

This trip took a lot of planning, including four train rides and hours of traveling. I had to leave the day before the race and sleep over in a school building with forty other racers on Thursday, then wake up early on Friday and take a shuttle bus to the start. They set up insulated mats for us, and that was about it. I slept with a large towel-sized blanket and my pillow as a backpack. I loved it. Not only is it a 54km ski marathon, but you have to do it while having at least a 3.5 kilogram backpack on at all times. Since I couldn’t leave anything behind at Rena, I had to pack smart cause everything I brought I would have to pack out and carry on the course with me. Even with this in mind, I still carried about 4.5 kg of weight on my back which I was fairly bummed about.

Anyways, I wandered around Rena a bit cause I had the whole night to do nothing but read. The next morning I grabbed some of the free sandwiches they had out for breakfast and caught the bus up to the course. Once I was there I grabbed my bib and watched the beginning waves of skiers start. I picked one of the later waves since I’d never done a ski marathon before. It was crazy to see how many people were racing that day, definitely over 1500, and that was just the small day! Supposedly the next day would have close to 25,000 people…

Eventually my wave came up at 10:05 am and with the firing of the start pistol we were off. It was so fun to be back in the grind of Nordic ski racing again. It felt like I was back in VT racing with WUHS, the same anxious feeling in my stomach knowing my body was about to put in a ton of work. You can check out the course map here, but the course was divided into two main climbing sections, with a long 15 km downhill at the end. The first 13 km was uphill with pretty much zero downhill at all, so it was low gear grinding for about an hour. This was actually the easiest part of the race for me; I was pretty energized and it was nice to just find a speed and stick with it. I stuck with cute girl Norwegian blonde for most of that leg of the trip, along with two older guys who matched my pace for a good while. Every 9 km or so there are water and juice stations for the racers. It was a fun game to watch my group and see which of us would break the stop first and get back on the trail. As we neared the top of that first climb after Dambua, we were in the alpine zone and we we were starting to feel the wind pick up. After passing over that first hill, that wind turned into what felt like 15 mile and hour gales blowing right into us. I thought I would enjoy going down that first hill, but I ended up craving to be down in the valley again where there was no wind; it was almost as hard to go slightly downhill in that wind then go up the climb we just did.

The wind persisted all the way to Midtfjellet, and by that point I was actually swearing into the wind because I was so frustrated. That second hill right before Midtfjellet was the low point of the race; the wind combined with exhaustion was starting to beat into me. At points I was probably going slower than walking pace, and many of the skiers around me were pretty battered by the terrain and wind as well. Right before Midtfjellet I met up with a guy and we were talking between ragged breaths, mostly jokingly swearing about the wind. He had a son a bit back, so we slowed down a bit and eventually he caught up with us. Us three, along with a random Russian looking guy, started cursing on the plateau section after Midtfjellet. Maybe the wind died down or was knowing that we were done with the last big climb, but us four started to blaze through the trail, smoking tons of the classic ski racers whose waves we were finally catching up with. I started to notice how beautiful the surroundings were; we were pretty much on top of a big mountain range with tons of views in every direction. It was so cool how there was no civilization or buildings anywhere near us, only hundreds of skiers dotting the trail. Wish I could have had time to take some pictures.

At this point we started to get more and more spectators, and they were actually building up snow benches and tents in anticipation for the next day’s skiers. (Check out a picture in my gallery for one of these up at Holmenkollen, some were pretty huge). I was racing in a t shirt, and many of them would point to me and yell at me in Norwegian, probably saying how crazy I was to wear so little clothing. Maybe it was the spectators and their cheering, but this really gave me some energy as I broke off of our pack. I got a nice V2 rhythm going and finally I reached sjusjøen, the last section of the trail and the 15 km downhill to the finish. It was like going down the length of Killington, but stretched over 10 km. I don’t know how I found so much energy, but that part of the trail was so much fun. Every classic skier I passed gave me more and more energy. One racer and I took turns overtaking each other on the downhill and flat sections. I was much lighter than him so he got me on the downhills, but I would overtake him on the flat sections by just cruising. It was a weird feeling when I saw the sign for the last 2km to race; it felt like forever ago when I saw the my first “54 KM TO FINISH” sing.

The last km was just super bizarre. It was probably the fact that all I had to eat for the past four hours was a handful of trail mix, but my body just started to shut down. I really really really should have stopped and eaten more food at that last 2km mark, but there was no way I was stopping then. I think I was experiencing hyper malnutrition or something, but at that point I think my own excitement over reaching the end of the race was giving out and my body started to realize how destroyed it was. I can’t really describe this in a good way through writing without overhyping it, but I had never experienced a feeling like this before during exercising. At points my vision would go in and out and my stomach was getting super super warm. Not great. As soon as I got over that finish line, I collapsed down by the edge of the course and starting stuffing my face with the rest of my trail mix. I found a discarded half-drunk coke sitting next to me which I downed asap. Peanuts never tasted so good.

After the finish was pretty anti-climactic. I pretty much walked over the a tent, bought a slice of pizza, then asked a girl where the shuttle bus to the train station was. Then I hopped on and left. I probably stayed for about 10 minutes! I was pretty psyched to sleep on the train back to Oslo and collapse in my bed. All in all I had an amazing time, it was definitely my favorite nordic race I’ve ever done.

Next year I want to come back and do it with my friend Zane Fields. The very next day him, his brother Jordan, and the entire Williams Nordic ski team arrived in Oslo. They were heading up to Lofoten the next day, so we got to hang out on Saturday, go to some bars, and explore Oslo a bit. It was definitely a Nordic skiing themed weekend.