American Birkebeiner Race Report
Want more factual, less-seizure-prone Birkie vids? Check out 2010 and 2011 . So, last year , I showed up to the Birkie with super-questionable fitness having barely ski raced all year. I ended up having the best race of my life and qualifying for the elite wave in 2012, reminding me for the hundredth time that predicting and controlling one's fitness is way, way harder than it seems. The obvious next step was to ski EVEN LESS and race EVEN LESS this year. I got back from 'cross nationals in mid-january, looked at the calendar, and realized that I had 6 weeks to the Birkie. Five years ago, I would've said there was no hope to get 50k fitness in 40 days, but now I know that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Let's do this! ...and six weeks later, I was in line at the airport with 10 ski days under my belt, with Cary and Lauren, who were on similar training plans -- and we suddenly had a problem even bigger than limited time on snow. Our plane tickets were bo...