Well that was an interesting first Birkie experience...
First off, I have to say that I had a great time over the whole weekend in general. This event is HUGE! (well at least for any cross-country ski race standard) There are close to 10,000 skiers competing in all the different events over the weekend, bringing in a total of 40,000 people to the Hayward, WI every year! I've never seen so much excitement over one race before, with constant discusion on tactics, snow conditions, race wax and overall "Birkie Fever".
So how was the race itself? Well this was my first Birkie, and my first 50km race. The longest race I had done previous to this was a 30km, so a little bit longer this time. Needless to say the first 25km went great. I started in the Elite woman's wave, which started 3min behind the Elite Mens wave of close to 200 skiers. I stuck with a lead pack of about 10 women as we started to catch some of the men at around 10km. Things were going well, I felt in control, keeping a good pace. You really had to be alert and on your toes incase any of the woman tried to break away and make a move, but at that point I was still in the game and hanging onto the group.
Shortly after the half-way feed station I "bonked". If you are not familiar with the term, it basically means that your body has hit a wall and has run out of energy stores. It is kind of a surreal experience; your body slows way down and it is almost as if you are not in the present moment but looking down on yourself, trying to move one muscle at a time. Everything around you kind of zones out and all you can do is go forward... slowly. I had energy drink and gels on me, but once you have bonked, it is very difficult to recover from. I'm not quite sure how I made it to the finish line from that point, but I remember the last 10km felt like years had gone by. I was very out of it, and it took me a good 1/2 hour to and hour after the finish to finally come around and be able to function normally.
I'm not exactly sure why that happened to me. It could be that I just did not have enough energy stores and food in me, or perhaps my body was just not prepared or familiar with how to ski a 50km race. But bonking is something that happens to every endurance athlete at some point in their career, and it was definitely a good learning experience for me.
I do know that I will be back in the future to race this race again. It was a great experience and I still had such a great time. I've heard that a Canadian Women has never won the American Birkie and I'm thinking I may try to change that. :)
