I Skied My Age in Kilometers

 The Ski Your Age in Kilometers is an annual event held at Birch Hill in Fairbanks, Alaska the day after Christmas. It is a fundraiser for the racing arm of the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks.  I’ve done it for at least the past 10 years but wasn’t sure I would do it this year.  I wasn’t even sure the event was going to happen because of COVID, but December 25 it was posted that it would be a virtual event this year and you could complete it any time before January 2nd.  I decided to do it on the “official” day for several reasons.  Mostly because I have to work all week and next weekend Eric and I are planning a 2-day cabin trip in the White Mountains. So, December 26 it would have to be.

Trails were bomber (all photos from other skis I have done at Birch Hill not from the day of the event)

The weather was good.  Last year I skied my age at an average temperature of -15 F. That was slow and brutal. This year it was anywhere from -5F to +15F.  Perfect for skiing.  The only complication was that I was on call. That meant that I had to be available for any phone calls from patients. I figured that most people would be sleeping in after Christmas so maybe if I got a really, really early start I could get most of it done before having to answer phone calls on the trail.  Spoiler alert – I made it the whole way with no phone calls.

I got my snacks and clothes ready and went to bed early, setting my alarm for 3 AM!!!  I had wanted to start skiing by 4 AM but by the time I got up, ate breakfast, got my hot drinks ready, kick waxed my skis (I was going to classic ski) and drove to Birch Hill it was 4:15 AM.  Not too much later than I hoped.  I put on my skis and then had to ski 1 mile to get to the warm up hut (the gate was still locked) where I could drop off my backpack. I know, a heated warm up hut with flush toilets where I could store my extra gear and food . . . what kind of outdoor adventure is this?  Pretty cush. But whatever. I still had to ski 62 km (I’m 61 but I always tack on an extra km for good measure.

I could tell it was going to be a really long day as I headed up the first hill.  (Birch Hill Ski Area is very hilly.  There is almost nothing that is flat.  You are either going uphill or going downhill.)  Although my legs and arms felt good, my heart and lungs were tired.  I had no oomph.  It probably didn’t help that I biked to work and back on Christmas Eve (28 miles) and then Eric and I went out for a bike ride on Christmas Day because the weather was so nice plus I had to try out the new frame bag for my bike.  Oh well.  I’m good at slow and steady.  I can usually classic ski on groomed trails at an average of 10 km per hour but I could tell that I wouldn’t be able to keep that up today.  And I didn’t.  I averaged more like 8 kph (5 mph).  Such is life.  

For a while, I wasn’t sure I would finish.  At 4 miles (6.4 km), I told myself I was already about a ninth of the way done.  It seemed like I still had so far to go.  At 9 miles (15 km), I told myself I was almost a quarter of the way done.  But that didn’t really help. Three quarters of the way, another 29.5 miles (47 km) still left to ski.  That seemed daunting.   Better to just not think about it.   So, I kept moving.  At the halfway mark, it seemed like I would never finish . For a while, I thought maybe I should just call it good and say I wasn’t feeling it today. Most older skiers don’t ski their actual age at this event.  I didn’t have to keep going. But I didn’t really have a good reason to stop.  I wasn’t feeling bad, I wasn’t cold.  I wasn’t even all that bored. I was just a little tired.  So I just kept moving, slow and sure, and the miles (kms) added up. Before I knew it, I was at 32 miles (52 km) and back at the warm up hut.  I made a quick pit stop to pee and drink some hot tea and headed back out for the final 10K.  Those last 10K went by pretty quickly. More people were out on the trails.  It was light and I was almost done!  Before I knew it, I was finished! Yes, it took me 7 hours and 43 minutes to go 62 km (38.5 miles) but I got it done!

I didn’t take any pictures while I skied.  The moon was out and was gorgeous.  The long slow sunrise that happened between 10 and 11 AM was also beautiful.  But I wanted to keep moving and stopping to take a photo with my phone is always an ordeal.  I have to stop, take off my gloves, unzip my layers, get my iPhone out of the Ziplock bag in my bra where I keep it so the battery doesn’t die, take the picture, and then put everything back.  By the time I do all that, I often get cold. And all the good photo ops seemed to be on long downhills.  So, no photos.  Most of the time it was dark anyway.  

There are often moose on the trails but not when I skied my age

Birch Hill has about 34 km of trails groomed for both classic and skate skiing.  I did do all of these at least once (even the black loops that are steep – fun to go down but slow to come back up.) In Fairbanks we have huge temperature inversions.  The cold settles in low spots and there can be a 30 degree difference in temperatures with just 1000 feet of elevation change. So, I hit all the low spots only once and then tried to stay up higher as much as possible.  I’d rather ski at temps above zero instead of below zero Fahrenheit.  I definitely could feel the difference when hitting the low spots, but I never got so cold, I had to put on different layers, I would just zoom down and then head back up.  Both gaining elevation and working harder would warm me right up.

Sunset at Birch Hill near the timing hut

I didn’t see any people until I only had 12 km left to go. Then skiers, including several friends, passed by and gave me encouragement when they found out that once again, I was skiing my age. I tried to encourage them to do the same but, alas, nobody wanted to do that! Eric is planning on his skiing his age the day after me.

And at the end, I convinced a skier going by to take my picture so at least I had a record of finishing my goal!  I think I’ll put my feet up the rest of today and tomorrow, but I still have one other goal to complete by the end of the year.  I’m almost at 5000 miles of biking this year, so if I get out for a couple of fat bike rides before Thursday, I should be able to make that goal, too. It’s good to have goals to help us get outdoors and stay motivated.  I hope all of you reach your goals, too.  And don’t let the fact that you (and all of us) are getting older get in the way of continuing to make new goals.  Look at me, I’m 61 and I’m still striving to reach new goals. If I can do it, so can you.