Reflections on Becoming a Birchlegger

Twenty years seems to take forever, and then it passes in the blink of an eye

This year I was fortunate enough to be able to ski my 20th Birkebeiner. I am now officially a member of the Birchleggings club.

Cross-country skiers are a unique group, and completing 20 Birkies is a celebrated and respected milestone. You see the bibs out on the course and you hear the cheers and congratulations. Becoming a Birchlegger has been my goal since the first time I crossed the finish line in Hayward.

The objective has been more prominent in my thoughts for the last few years, but even at Birkie 17, 18, or 19, it seemed like 20 is a number you’re never going to reach.

The Birkie is like that. You can never take any finish for granted. Every year as we get older the hills get taller, the descents become scarier, and it’s harder to navigate issues of health and fitness. Heck, you could come down with an illness on Birkie morning (although, unless it was truly life-threatening, getting sick isn’t enough to stop most Birkie skiers).

It’s remarkable to see people who have done 20, or 30, or 40, or 49 Birkies (as Ernie St Germaine has, there have only been 49, so nobody has done more).

I wanted to get to 20 Birkies so I could go to the Birchlegging breakfast with my wife and daughters. My daughters are 10 and 12 and it’s important to me to try and make them proud. I’m not the type of person who is going to win an academy award or anything like that, so I figured this was my only opportunity to have my name called out, and to walk across a stage, and to receive a plaque.

Mission accomplished!

It’s my hope that they’ll remember that moment. I hope it inspires them to be tenacious in their pursuit of whatever it is that they become passionate about (it doesn’t have to be skiing, you can encourage a person to ski, but you can’t make them…I’ve learned that much).

I did my first Birkie back in 1994. I did 8 in a row and then had a 10 year gap when I lived in Lima Peru. The first one was hard. I was 18 or 19, and I did it wearing khaki pants and a wool button-up shirt. I didn’t wear Lycra tights until my 3rd Birkie because the people in my sphere spent all their time mocking people who dressed like that.

These days I prefer to surround myself with Birkie skiers. It really is a family. They’re kind and encouraging and tough as nails.

My first few Birkies were hard, but in my 20s it got easier. It’s a nice thing to come into your strength in life. It’s important to celebrate those moments, even if you don’t fully appreciate them at the time. You’ll appreciate them later.

Last year, at my annual physical, my doctor put me through a test and determined I had “respiratory blockage consistent with COPD.” She put me on a new inhaler and I survived my Birkie. This year, my insurance stopped covering that medication (YAY for for-profit healthcare!), but we found a generic substitute that I have to take with a nebulizer.

You see, when I was in my 20s, there was never an annual health issue that threatened my ability to ski. Now, that’s just a part of life.

I drove up to Hayward during a blizzard on Thursday to pick up my bib. I have to admit, I became emotional when the kind lady behind the table handed me the envelope and I saw the flash of purple that indicated I was a 20 year skier.

But I didn’t feel I was a Birchlegger yet. Sure, I had the bib, but I’d only completed 19 Birkies. Like I said before, no Birkie finish can be taken for granted.

So, I felt a little extra pressure for this Birkie. I can only imagine the pressure athletes like Jessie Diggins must feel when they have the weight of the eyes of the world upon them. Shesh… my stress was completely self-imposed, and it wasn’t easy for me.

But it was more than just the pressure to finish. It was also the weight of time.

Every now and then you have those moments when you feel the accumulation of years. Even though completing 20 Birkies is an indication that you’ve spent your time wisely, those years are still gone.

Anyone will tell you that 20 years is a long time. It’s almost an unfathomable amount of time, and yet we pass through it. Maybe our dim recognition of how quickly our lives go by is a kindness. Every now and then you see a friend’s baby and realize he’s about to graduate from college and you go, “Whoa…”

The older I get, the more often I’m paralyzed by emotion. Sometimes you look at your kids and you’re hit by the realization that they’re no longer the tiny little bundles of joy that you can sweep up into your arms. I can’t carry them on my shoulders anymore.

You can’t spend too much time dwelling on these things. It’s like looking into the sun. These are powerful emotions and they can put you into a panic.

My way of handling this form of anxiety is to never pass up an opportunity to be kind to my wife and kids (and the dog, he’s a good boy). Well, most of the time:

Be patient. Be kind. Fill every moment you have with love. You don’t have an infinite supply of moments.

I look back on these 20 years and realize I’ve lived a charmed life. We’ve had our issues. We’ve had struggles and disagreements. We don’t live in a mansion overlooking Miami beach. But our house is warm, and there’s food on the table, and I have a wife and two daughters who love me. Even the dog seems to think I’m okay.

The inevitable passage of time is one of those things that you have no alternative but to come to grips with.

I did my race on Saturday and it was tough for me. The battery in my watch died after about 2 hours, and I thought I was having a terrible day. It seemed like the sun was setting (this whole life/death thing bubbles right up to the surface at every Birkie).

I’m a bigger skier at around 215 pounds (this year), and the trail was especially mushy. During the last 10 k, I had to pull over and take a few deep breaths on more than one occasion. After I crossed the finish line, I was astounded to discover I’d done the race in less than 5 hours. I try to aim for 4 hours, so I had no problem with finishing in 5.

I do the Birkie for the finisher’s pins. Any finish is cause for celebration.

My wife and my kids were waiting for me. My eldest daughter looked at me and, in a voice dripping with concern, asked, “Daddy, are you okay?”

There was almost a warning in her tone. It was like she was saying, “Don’t try to tell me that you are okay because you’re clearly not. It’s okay to ask for help daddy. Don’t you always say that?”

I was touched by her concern.

One of my girls took up my poles and the other took up my skis and they led me to get my gear bag and head to the car.

It took me all of the drive home to start to recover. When we hit Spooner, I saw a sign in front of a local bank that inspired me to crack a joke. My youngest daughter said, “Well, I guess daddy’s feeling better.”

She was worried too. That comment made me laugh pretty hard. Then I got home and I took a shower, ate, and slept.

It’s the peaceful, restful sleep of total exhaustion. You’re too tired to be tormented by the nagging stresses of life. I only sleep that good once a year.

Wow, I was out cold.

The next day was the breakfast. I don’t tend to go to public events and get emotional, but the physical exhaustion from the finish combined with the emotional exhaustion of the weight of years left me vulnerable.

I’m pleased to say that the Birchlegger breakfast brought me a sense of relief I didn’t expect. I’d already come to the conclusion that if I’m going to keep completing the Birkie, I’m going to have to adjust my preparation.

In my 30s and 40s I could get away with carrying a few extra pounds and relying on brute force to get me to the finish line. As I close in on 50 (based on the way I felt yesterday), it’s clear that’s no longer going to be a sustainable approach.

I mean, I don’t eat terribly, and I don’t drink to excess. However, I do like to grill up hamburgers and drink a couple beers on a nice summer day. Summer grilling is great in the moment, but you feel it when you hit the high point on the Birkie trail.

The other thing is at 215 pounds, I’m still a twig when I walk into Farm and Fleet or Wal-Mart. It’s only on the Birkie trail that I’m a giant. Even in my 20s when I could do the Birkie in under 3 hours, I was around 165 pounds. Most of my friends hovered around 140.

It’s almost the case that you can’t ski yourself into Birkie shape at 215 pounds because your body weight causes you to put on so much upper body strength just from the act of skiing. For the last few years I’ve been doing a crash diet starting in November or December.

Even the vet will tell you that the best way to keep your dog healthy is to keep him at a good weight. What it really comes down to is making a choice. Do I want to be fit and healthy and present for the life of my kids, or do I want to eat hamburgers all summer?

Frankly, I wish more test questions were that easy.

You have to be deliberate about health. Bad food choices are always very accessible.

I think I’ll need start my diet a little earlier each year until I gradually grow into the habit of doing it year round. Logically I can see that I should adopt the diet right now, but I am also stubborn and I expect I’ll have to learn the hard way.

The occasional date night with the wife isn’t up for negotiation though. We’ve got to have that night once a month when we treat ourselves to something nice and reflect on all the years…

All this was going through my head when I walked into the Birchlegger breakfast and started chatting with the fellow leading the presentation. I got the weird sense that I was looking at my potential future. He was a rail thin guy who had done 40+ Birkies, and I suspected that he’d faced the same decision point I’m looking at now, and elected to stay fit and keep skiing.

We started chatting and I’m used to getting some gentle ribbing about how I need to lose 20 pounds, but then he looked at me and said, “But you’re strong and fit!”

He was kind.

I think it’s rare that I’ve been in a room full of people and felt such an understanding of the shared experience. There’s such an underlying sense of kindness that emanates from the people who have done 20, 30, and 40+ Birkies.

Even the ones I’ve disagreed with… I find myself disagreeing with them less. It’s good to gain the perspective where you start to understand how most disagreements are trivial.

It makes me laugh, because some of these accomplished skiers look like jolly old grandparents who might give you a tray of cookies, and then you have to reconcile that with the understanding that these are people who annually complete one of the most grueling physical challenges in the world.

I mean, there are people who go and perch themselves on a bar stool and scowl at the mirror and think they’re tough, but those people are frauds. The tough people are these kind and generous souls who look at you with a twinkle in their eye and who steadfastly refuse to give up on experiencing the full joy of life.

Gosh, what wonderful and inspiring people!

If only we elected more people like that!

There was a group of speakers and I was delighted at how emotion got to all of them. I always appreciate it when gruff old guys start talking about their kids and their voices crack. Just cry guys. Go ahead. We should be a room full of sobbing tough guys. It would do us good.

The other part that was funny was that I was sitting there thinking my experience at the Birkie was unique, but everybody who talked had the same story as mine. There’s a part in The Catcher in the Rye where Mr. Antolini tells Holden that there comes a time in your life when you recognize other people have faced the same challenges that are before you.

I’ve understood that logically before, but there’s a difference between understanding something must be true, and knowing it in your heart to be true.

The Birchleggings breakfast was helpful as I spent the day wrestling with the weight of years. The Birkie makes us touch base with our mortality, and provides a gentle reminder when we might need to make a slight course correction. That really helps provide the guidance you need to maximize your life.

I guess that’s why I ski the darn thing.

The presenter went on to say that we all have to recognize the day will come when we ski our last Birkie. That’s a little sobering.

Then a twinkle came into his eyes and he added, “But then there’s the Kortelopet!”

One of the speakers mentioned that he would have done a few more Birkies, but his kids asked him to ski the Kortelopet with them instead (and he made the right choice). But that got me thinking… if I’m fortunate enough that my daughters want to ski the Kortelopet, then I’ll have to do it with them.

However, these days, there’s an open track Birkie on Wednesday. That means I could potentially do my Birkie on Wednesday and then ski the Kortelopet with them on Friday.

I’ve never done the Kortelopet. It would be fun to do my first Kortelopet with my daughters.

As I write this, it’s two days since the Birkie. My legs feel pretty good. I think if I had to go and ski the Kortelopet today, I could do it. This plan isn’t impossible.

So, I guess I’m putting myself under pressure again. It’s going to require dedication to achieve the kind of fitness I’ll need to do two Birkie races in the same week! I guess I should just throw my grill in the dumpster right now and save myself some trouble.

But pressure is a good thing, pressure makes diamonds.

Celebrating 20 Birkies helped me recognize that it’s a privilege to feel the weight of years. I understood that logically before, but now I know it in my heart, and that makes all the difference.

Here’s to 20 more Birkies!

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Pick up a copy of Beyond Birkie Fever. Put it under your pillow. Memorize it.