Bad Luck at the Birkie

 

Suddenly, I was falling. 

I’m not sure what happened. The hill wasn’t different than the multitude of other hills I had already skied down. I wasn’t trying to avoid other ski racers around me. Did I catch an edge? I’m not sure. One minute I was zipping down the hill about 15 mph, and the next, I hit the ground hard on my right thigh. 

I’ve fallen skiing many times, so I got up and started skiing again. But this felt different. It hurt. A lot. I wasn’t sure I could keep going. What bad luck! I was only 16 kilometers into the 50-kilometer American Birkebeiner ski race. 

Unfortunately, it was not the only bad luck that my son Riley and I had during the week of the Birkie. We had a few bad breaks. One really bad one.

Back to the Birkie

The American Birkebeiner is North America’s biggest 50-kilometer ski marathon, a point-to-point race from Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin, with about 10,000 skiers participating in the week of ski races. Eric, Riley, and I completed the race last year and we all had a lot of fun. Eric had no desire to go back, but Riley wanted to return to see if he could do the race faster. I decided to join him and see if I could improve, too. Last year I finished in five hours and one minute. Could I get below five hours this year? 

Bad Luck with the Weather

Hayward Lake the day before our race.  2 days earlier there was standing water  on it!

Building up to the Birkie, Hayward was having one of their best ski seasons in a long time. There was a good base of snow with temperatures below freezing. Then the week before the race, the temperature warmed to the upper 40s Fahrenheit, and it rained for two days during Birkie week. Not great, but it wasn’t forecast to rain on race day, and we were told that the temperature would drop below freezing before the race. The groomers would have time to do their magic to get the course ready. 

I packed my skin skis along with my regular skis. Skin skis have a synthetic rug-like material on the kick zone, so they don’t need kick wax. They work well in warm or icy conditions. Riley paid to have his skis waxed by local experts. We both tried to outmaneuver the bad luck. 

Pre-Race Bad Luck

Even before he left for Wisconsin, Riley, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was having bad luck. 

•  Earlier, he and his wife, Sam, had to move into an Airbnb when they unexpectedly couldn’t move into the housesitting they lined up before the lease on their old place ran out. Then they needed to move out of the Airbnb before Riley flew to Minneapolis for the race.
• The night before Riley was due to fly out, Sam was leaving work when someone backed into her car, making it basically undriveable. Riley packed up the Airbnb while Sam booked a hotel room near the airport.
• Riley went to pick up Sam at work. He went in for about 15 minutes to help her. While he was inside, another car backed into his car! Fortunately, the damage wasn’t as bad and the car was drivable.
• They packed everything into his car and went to the hotel Sam had booked. There they discovered that the hotel charges an additional $250 per night fee if you live in Albuquerque! They scrambled, canceling the reservation and finding a friend who had room for Sam and Riley to stay. Early the next morning, Sam drove Riley to the airport.

Riley's car after being backed into

Talk about bad luck! Despite all that, Riley was in pretty good spirits when we met up at the airport in Minneapolis. As we were getting Riley’s bags, a mini-blizzard hit the city, with 4-5 inches of snow and high winds that lasted several hours. Luckily, we were staying near the airport that night, so we had only a short drive in those bad conditions. We found out later that the airport shut down for several hours. We just squeaked in! So not all bad luck!

More Pre-Race Bad Luck 

By the next morning the storm was over, and the roads were mostly slushy until about 20 minutes north of Minneapolis where they were dry. The storm had been very localized. 

We made it to Hayward, dropped off Riley’s skis to be waxed, got our bibs, checked out the Expo, and then drove the hour north to our Airbnb in Ashland, Wisconsin. 

We decided to go for a short ski and headed to Copper Falls State Park, just 30 minutes from our place. We had a great little ski, and I definitely felt that my skin skis were the right choice for the conditions. They were even faster than Riley’s older skate skis on the downhills. (Skate skis are usually faster than classic skis as they don’t have any kick wax on them.) We headed back to our place, stopping at Culvers (a Wisconsin fast food icon) where I got local walleye fish and chips and Riley had some fried cheese curds. When in Wisconsin, be like the locals! We watched the Olympics and went to bed.

Culver's (local) walleye fish and chips and fried cheese curds.  Doesn't get much more Wisconsin than that!

Unfortunately, Riley woke up the next morning with a slightly scratchy throat, some postnasal drainage, and felt a bit more tired than usual. He felt like he might be coming down with a cold. And the Birkie was only a day away! He decided to rest while I headed to a local xc ski area to get in another short ski. The trails had just been groomed and the skiing was awesome, but I was bummed for Riley. He was poised for a really fast Birkie. But now he had a cold. Bad timing and bad luck but not surprising with all the stress he had been under.

He woke up the next morning feeling about the same. Not bad enough to drop out, but he probably wouldn’t be able to push hard. We made our way to the start and made plans to meet up at the end, as it would take me a couple of hours longer than him to finish.

Ready for the race to begin

Disaster

Having learned from last year, I made sure to get to front of my wave in a place where I could ski in tracks. The 50K is the big attraction with over seven thousand racers competing, so many that the race starts in waves of about 200-300 each. It’s a bit chaotic, but if you want to improve your time, you’ve got to position yourself correctly. 

Our wave started and I felt good. The tracks were very fast and a little icy in places, so I was glad I had my skin skis. I had great kick and good glide. I was making good time navigating through and around people. I was having fun when I got to that hill…and…crash! 

Luckily a Birkie Ambassador (volunteers who ski the course, encouraging and helping racers) had been chatting with me moments earlier and saw me fall. She helped me get out of the way and back on my feet. I told her I was okay and didn’t need a medic. My groin was sore and I thought maybe I had pulled a muscle. She told me the next aid station was nearby and she would ski there to let them know I was coming. 

I continued but quickly realized my race was over. I was able to limp-ski but not well. I could herringbone up and gingerly snowplow down, but I hurt too much to stride with my right leg. At the aid station, the medics checked me over. I felt fine except for the pain in my anterior thigh and my groin. It was hard to use my quadriceps muscle to lift my leg, so I assumed I had a muscle/groin sprain. After checking me over, the medics said I was good to go.

A volunteer drove me to the finish where I retrieved my bag, changed my clothes, and met up with Riley. I was hobbling okay with the use of a ski pole, so we went to the finishers’ tent to get our free soup and hot chocolate and then took a bus back to our car. I could limp but couldn't put a lot of weight on my leg and couldn't raise my thigh to get in the car so I still figured it was a muscle or ligament strain. 

Getting food with Riley after the race

But by the time we got back to our Airbnb in Ashland, about four hours after the accident, the pain was worse. I decided to go to an ER/urgent care and get an x-ray just to be sure I didn’t have a fracture. By the time we got there, I couldn't bear any weight on my right leg. I had to use a wheelchair to get into the hospital and felt most comfortable with my leg flexed and externally rotated (classic position for a hip fracture). I was more worried it might be fractured but was still hopeful. 

The Worst of the Bad Luck

The x-ray showed it. 

I had a fracture through the neck of the femur, a typical hip fracture. The physician wanted to send me to Duluth via ambulance, but I talked him into letting us drive. I got a shot of Toradol and then a Vicodin and that helped the pain to be tolerable. Riley said the emergency doctor was “stunned” that I had skied a kilometer and walked about a half a mile on the fracture. I just thought it was a bad groin sprain! We went to our Airbnb, packed up and were at the hospital in Duluth two hours later. 

Not happy about the diagnosis

At least I had a room with a view -  Lake Superior at sunrise

About 36 hours later I had my surgery, a total right hip replacement. The surgeon thought that was the best option given my age and activity level. I didn’t argue. He could have pinned my bones and let them heal, but that would have meant 6-8 weeks of no weight-bearing activity. Yikes! With the replacement, I was walking a bit the same day. Plus, I’ve already got two knee replacements, so why not some more hardware?! Less than two days later I am out of the hospital and recovering at a hotel waiting to fly home in two more days. 

My new hip

Learning to use adaptive equipment since I'm not supposed to bend over to put on my socks.

So How Was Riley’s Race?

Riley had to fly home the day after the race, but Eric was able to fly down on the red eye, so they crossed paths in Minneapolis to hand off the rental car. Here is Riley’s race report:

“I started off the race very conservatively, but thankfully the snow conditions and my skis were in my favor. Rain earlier in the week meant that the race course was incredibly fast. I had also gotten new skis this winter and decided to pay for a professional wax application. All this culminated in skis that felt like some of the fastest in Wave 2. 

Riley zooming along the course passing other racers!

I tried to take advantage by going really easy on the uphills and then trying to find the fastest parts of the course on the flats and downhills to catch back up. This allowed me to stay on pace with the skiers around me even without being able to keep my heart rate high due to my cold. That was a nice contrast to last year where I had slow skis! Ending on a high note, in the last 3km and over the lake I passed over 20 people. My years of skiing in Iowa prepared me well for the icy conditions on the lake. 

That's a pretty damn fast time!

Ultimately the race went a lot better than I thought it would. I improved a few places from last year and because of the fast conditions was 23 minutes faster! Nothing has been announced, but I don't think I made my goal of getting into Wave 1, so I guess I will have to come back next year.”

Final Thoughts 

Riley and I had a lot of bad luck, but it wasn’t all bad. In fact, except for my hip fracture none of it was a deal breaker (pun intended!). And overall, I’m doing remarkably well. I’m up walking, not needing any strong pain medications and sleeping pretty well, too. I am bummed because I had several fun outdoor adventures planned in the next few months that I will need to cancel. Rehabbing from a hip fracture was not part of those plans. But such is life. Although I’m getting older, I’m not quite over the hill yet, so I’ll get back at it again in the future. Or at least that is my new plan!