Remembering F’igen . . . or actually that F’ing Birkie

Sometimes all the things you worry about going into a big event are all the wrong things. As the Birkie quickly approached I spent way too much mental energy worrying about my lack of training.  Of course I only worried about this long after it was too late to make much difference.  November, December or even January might have been a great time to do worry about it as you could still take action.  However, I left it until February at which point I upped my skiing to a record setting 3 days per week.  I even tried to convince myself that I skied 30k one day (luckily Dave pointed out to me that wasn’t true and eventually I reluctantly conceded that it was only about 20k).

I had fantasies of the Birkie being cancelled thus ruining 10,000 people’s days so I could feel better.  I had fantasies of short illnesses that would cause me to miss the race (the Birkie flu instead of Birkie fever).  Of course a sane person would have switched to the Kortie on Jan 31 but that particular day I was overcome with enthusiasm for skiing.  Truthfully I am pretty sure that I was overcome with only enough enthusiasm to not change out of the Birkie but not enough to go skiing when I got home.  I can’t say for sure but I’m pretty confident that I had a surge of confidence and then got home from work and mixed up a nice drink instead of heading out into the cold to ski.  I can say with fair confidence that I kicked back with my drink and was filled with thoughts of how skiing the Birke with little training would be fine.  Sports psychologists do say that the power of positive thinking is important!

The sad reality of life is that no matter what you do you can’t stop time and eventually Birkie day arrived whether I wished it away or not.  (Apparently the power of positive thinking can only take you so far!)

I won’t bore you with details of getting up at 5am to get ready, worrying if I had enough Dermatone slathered on to prevent frostbite, and how much fun it is to freeze in a porta-potty in 2 degree temps (although you can read more about that here).  Instead I’ll just cut to the chase of the actual race.

As mentioned I worried quite a bit (although possibly not enough or too little too late) about my fitness.  I was skiing out of Wave 3 and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to ski that kind of time this year so I lined up in the back. When the gun went off I didn’t let nervous energy get the better of me and send me rocketing towards the front instead I took it easy and just didn’t worry about the pace.  No need to rush around.  Plus I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a slow starter on my best days especially in really cold temps.

I thought my plan was going pretty well.  By around 5k or so I was starting to feel a little bit more warmed up and settling into the race.  The pack was thinning out a bit already back in the back of Wave 3 so it wasn’t so crowded.  By the 9k feed station I really thought that the race was going pretty well all things considered.  Certainly not fast but nice and steady. I was pacing myself off someone whose bib said this was Birkie #28. I figured he knew how to pace the race with that many years of experience!

But then skip ahead to about 17k into the race.  At this point you’ve crossed over Fire Tower Hill but still have lots of racing to go.  Enough that it still seems daunting.  This is the point at which my back started to seize up and was excruciatingly painful. I had lots of back problems in 2013 but they really hadn’t bothered me since mid-summer.  Apparently though my problems had not gone away permanently since I was in agony.

I’m not going to lie – with 37k still to ski I was a little worried.  Luckily my back pain totally took my mind off my lack of endurance. Instead I focused on trying to find ways of skiing that would be less painful. Skiing slower was a big part of the plan as was stretching on every downhill.  I also changed up how upright I was on the skis trying out different positions to find ones that were less painful.

At 21k I got to the Boedecker Road feed station and decided that I needed to stretch out my back.  In the past it would often feel a little better if I could crack my back.  I skied into the aid station, ate a Gu, drank some water and then found a free space.  And I took off my skis, laid down in the snow and stretched. Then I got up and continued on as what else can you do?!?!

My back felt a little better for a kilometer or so but after that the pain was back with a vengeance and at times it was hard to find any position that wasn’t shooting pain up my back. The next rest stop was at OO where you can get a bus if you drop out. That is the half way point for the Classic race and I wasn’t sure if I could last skiing with that much pain for another 27k.

So I thought about it and I thought about it some more. I thought about what I wrote on the toe of my boot – Remember F’igen.   Last September we mountain biked through the Swiss Alps and the day we rode through Frutigen was pretty horrible.  We had 9 hours of riding/walking with steep climbs and plenty of rain and lots of misery. I cried once and it took every ounce of fortitude to make it. Truthfully we should have gotten the bus in Frutigen before we started the final mountain pas to Adelboden but we didn't.

One could take “Remember F’igen” two ways – 1) that if we would have taken the bus when we had the chance the day would have been tiring but enjoyable or 2) that you can dig deep and survive things that are really hard and laugh about it later.  Not shockingly I went with the 2^nd interpretation.  I told myself that if I wasn’t crying and I could still move forward then there was no way I should drop out.  Plus they gave us the Finisher hat when we picked up our race bib what would I do with the hat if didn’t finish???

I got to OO and I ate more Gu, drank more water and once again found a spot to take off my skis and stretch my back.  Then I put my skis on and went right on by the easiest place to drop out of the race telling myself that it was the smart move.  I’d regret stopping when it took me one year longer to get my 10 year plaque (or piece of wood as we like to call it).  Once again I felt better for about 1 k and then it was back to pain management.

There is definitely some bruised pride in having to go really slow in the Birkie as everyone can easily see that you started in Wave 3 (based on the number on your bib).  And there you are mixed in with people from Wave 5-7 but what can you do but keep going slowly but steadily just trying to keep the kilometer markers going by. You must ignore the fact that you are not passing anyone while hoards of people are passing you. You just have to stay focused on checking off Birkie #6.

After OO the next aid station is about 9k away which is the furthest between aid stations of the entire race.  Unfortunately this section was particularly painful for my back. I was having trouble finding any position that was comfortable but I reminded myself of lots of other painful things I’ve done (got hit by a car, 35k of leg cramps in Birkie #1, recovering from knee surgery, riding day after day over the Alps, etc, etc).  You also have to focus on the positive such as I’m more than half way, Dave will have plenty of time to take the bus back to get the car and still meet me at the finish, I have cupcakes waiting back at the cabin, etc, etc.

I actually thought about stopping before I got to the next aid station to stretch my back but I told myself to wait as it didn’t seem to help that much. I was imagining myself having to stop every K to stretch which seemed futile. Finally I got to the Gravel Pit feed station ate my Gu, drank my water and stretched my back.  Then I got back to skiing (or maybe just walking on skis most of the time at this point). I focused on getting to the Mosquito Brook aid station which I eventually reached and did the same thing – Gu, water, stretch.

This is where things got interesting. First you go up the 39K hill (which is actually the 43k hill for Classic skiers) which is a nice change of pace because there is a big crowd, music and spectators to take your mind off your suffering.  I wish more hills had music!  Then you have to prepare for Bitch Hill which isn’t really that hard of a hill but it is steep and it is late in the race.  This is another hill that has a crowd of spectators dressed up to entertain the skiers.  I got up both just by going really slowly and finding a body position that took the pain off my back.  So far so good really.

Down bitch hill and you have less than 10k to go which is awesome mentally because 10k is a distance that doesn’t sound too bad. But in the Birkie you can never get complacent! I was going down the 2^nd downhill after Bitch Hill when I realized I needed to get out of the tracks to go around a skier with slow skis.  I jumped out into the skate lane but then so did the slower skier.  I was snowplowing so I could slow down and not hit him when a guy behind me started yelling “on your left.” Unfortunately I had nowhere to go as to move to the right required skiing over a mound of snow so he hit me. Given how soft the snow was it wasn’t really so bad to crash as it was a soft landing.  However, after I crashed he crashed and when he crashed he landed on my pole and I heard the heart wrenching sound of it snapping.

At this point I really couldn’t believe my luck.  I could barely ski for back pain and now I had only one working pole. The guy who hit me asked if I was okay to which I replied that I was fine. Then I picked myself up and just skied off. What can you do.  That’s ski racing. I’m not sure if I was more upset that I had to ski with only one pole or that he had just broken a rather expensive pole.

So I started skiing with my one pole and miracle of miracles it actually felt better in some ways. I broke my left pole and it was the left side of my back that felt the worst so in some ways it brought a little relief.  Plus you get lots of sympathy when you have only one pole. Plus the kind of sympathy you get for having a broken pole is better than the sympathy you get for being a Wave 3 skier who has slid back to ski with Wave 6 and 7 skiers.

So there I was skiing along with my one pole just making the best of what was not a great day.  Luckily I was only about 4-5k away from the next aid station where they have extra poles so it wasn’t the end of the world.  At the Hwy 77 aid station I got a new pole and was so invigorated to be close to the end that I didn’t even both to stretch.   My new pole took a little getting used to as it was a cheap pole with just a loop off the grip so it was easy to forget that it wasn’t attached as firmly as my other pole.  It was good though as I didn’t want to ski the whole way to the finish with just one pole as it does get awkward after a while. (Big thanks to Yuriy for all those drills with just one pole over the years though).

After Hwy 77 you have one big climb still to do which seemed easier than normal.  Funny thing about the back pain is that I wasn’t as tired as normal since I had been skiing so slow all day.  I was glad to get the climb over with but I wasn’t as deathly tired as normal.  Once you get up and over that you have a nice long lake to cross before you get to downtown Hayward.

At the start of the lake is the most important part of the race – the table with Jaeger shots.  And yes I stopped for some Jaeger.  Normally I chug it on the move but this year I stopped and savored the smooth burn.  That fortified me for what was the worst crossing of the lake I’ve experienced yet.  The wind is always a factor in the lake crossing but this year was the worst yet.  The wind was howling and drifting the snow so the tracks were completely gone in spots. It was also a very cold wind which was just a nice touch at the end of a very long day.

However at this point you know you’ll make it and when time is no longer a consideration you just keep plugging away slow and steady.  It would have been nice to draft someone but I did not luck into that.  Instead a woman drafted me the whole way so at least I could provide a nice service (and I felt good about it since she was from Wave 4 so obviously not her finest day either).  After what seems like forever you finally make the move off the lake onto the streets of Hayward and finally take the turn onto Main Street.  I was pretty excited to see the Finish line! Stopping skiing felt so good as did get my 6 year pin.

I admit that I never thought I would ski an almost 7 hour Birkie.  And if I am completely honest I would say that there is a part of me that wishes I had dropped out so that I wouldn’t have that recorded for posterity.  However, the bigger part of my conscience is glad that I toughed it out and pressed on to record one more finish.  It offered me one more opportunity to see if I’m tough enough. Truthfully it must not have been that hard as I didn’t even cry once!

And it wouldn't be a Birkie blog without thanking some people.  Special thanks to CXC for waxing my skis as it is always nice to have the pros taking care of things.  Also thanks to the CXC coaches as I wouldn't even be able to ski the Birkie without their instruction.  Special mention to the coaching efforts of Igor who passed away this winter as he always pushed me to be a better skier than I thought I could be.  He will be missed but his memory will live on with all of us who learned so much from him.  Thanks to Matt Liebsch for picking out an awesome pair of Rossignol skis for me last summer as they worked great.  And thanks to the awesome group of friends who I share a cabin with each year for the fun and camaraderie that really make the weekend worthwhile.