I skied 55km on a very warm day.

It was with some hesitation that I signed up for the Birkebeiner last Monday. I'd only really started training about 2-3 weeks ago, delaying because of the lingering effects of my concussion and having difficulty because of the weirdness of our weather, with our trails being decimated by two Chinooks. But, on Sunday, February 6th, I had gone out and done 40km's to train. I felt the distance, but wasn't completely worn out, so I went home and, on the 7th, signed up to do the 55km distance.

Then, on Saturday, February 12th, it was time to truly test myself. It was pretty warm to start; only just slightly below freezing as I chose what layers to take off for the start. I decided to leave my fleece, wind shell, and beloved ear muffs in my clothing bag, to be put back on when I crossed the finish line, and wore just my insulated tights (think the spandex version of long johns), with some shorts for decency, and to carry my fruit bars, a moisture wicking, lightly insulated long sleeve shirt, and a wind blocking vest.

Awaiting the start, slightly more than 400 of us lined up, with the fast people at the start and the rest of us somewhere further back. I situated myself somewhere near the back of my line, hoping mainly to be able to finish the distance, and not with some time goal in mind.  Around me were gathered some others with similar goals, although many of them tended to be a bit faster than I was. One of the girls near me was in the 55km with pack class, and her pack included a stuffed husky that was nearly as big as she was, with an embedded iPod. I think I could still hear the music for about a minute after she passed by me, and I kept seeing little bits of the purple plastic wig she was wearing.

Most of the people around me at the start took off as I stuck to a steady pace, trying to conserve my energy and arm strength for the whole course. Even still, I warmed up steadily, so that I had the vest open and my sleeves pushed up within the first 8km's.

At each aid station along the course, I made sure to grab some food and Gatorade, knowing that I would need the energy that these would provide over the race. The memory of my energy loss on the Seven Summits Challenge was still relatively fresh in my mind, and I really didn't want to feel that again.

It was with a "whoop" that I passed the half-way mark, and was glad that I was able to still feel a lot of energy left, while getting a bit of a boost from the knowledge that the distance left to go was finally less than the distance travelled, and this would only improve.

As the day warmed, not only did I warm up, but so did the snow, and I began to have some concerns about the glide wax on my skis. As the tracks began to glisten from the snow becoming wetter (and inundated with klister from those with wax-kick skis), I noticed I wasn't quite getting the same level of glide. But, I kept going, catching up with a few more people. One of these people was a man who had completed the Penticton Iron Man, and we chatted for probably about 10km's until his wax issues led to him almost tripping and he waved me on. He was also carrying a 12 lb pack, which really didn't help with his energy.

I finally managed to cross the finish line after nearly 5 and a half hours, feeling very tired, and, well, kind of sweaty. By the time it was 9:00 that night, I was dead tired and damn near passing out.

Next year, I think I'm going to try for the 55km with pack race. I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get some friends from around here to enter with me, at least for the race itself, whether they go for the 31km or 55km without pack, or even join me in trying to carry a pack the distance.

For those interested in the stats for the race, here they are:

Place in 55km "lite": 161
Place in sex: 131/181 M
Place in age/sex: 30/37  M30-39
Total time: 5:23:56
Time per km: 5:54

I'm still looking forward to a lot more skiing this year, but probably not to the same intensity for a while.

Oh, and I get ideas once in a while of some day doing the Canadian Ski Marathon, or going easy and doing the Traversee de Charlevoix.