The Birkie

What: The 2010 American Birkebeiner nordic ski race
Where: Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin
Rating: 9
Non-Quantifiable Rating: Slow and steady...gets 2,326th place.

Hey!!  You know what would be super fun?  Doing alternating single leg squats along side simultaneous lat pull-downs and tricep extensions.  For three hours and thirty-nine minutes straight.  While covering 51 kilometers.  Broken up only by the occasional death-defying slide down an icy, curving downhill while herds of snowmobilers line the track and eagerly await your spectacular (and nearly inevitable) face plant.

Put that way, it sounds like a person would have to be a little "off" to find the Birkebeiner appealing.  And come to think of it, nordic skiers do tend to march to their own frozen drummers.  But I'm proud to count myself among them -- at least as a wannabe.

This was my 3rd Birkie (as us super-cool insiders call it), and it was a lot of fun.  I actually trained this year, and cut two hours and 29 minutes off my previous time (that tells you alllll you need to know about how slow I was before).  The conditions were perfect, and I managed to finish right in the middle of the pack, earning myself a substantially cooler starting place for next year.

As usual, the Birkie was impeccably organized, and the northern Wisconsin crowd came out in full force to cheer.  And only some of them were hoping to witness face plants.