Skinnyski Race Team Weekend Recap: Birkie Story

"You can always see it coming, but you can never stop it." -The Cowboy Junkies

Last December I spent a long week in Mexico City, and things didn't go as planned. But I got to see the pyramids and set up for a return trip. And wouldn't you know it... that return trip came onto the schedule the week of February 17th. So my friend and colleague Peter Harrison and I scheduled our trip: we were to head down Sunday night and return on Friday morning. Early on Friday morning, that is. Visions of a 1/4 day off, and perhaps one of the earliest departure from the Twin Cities toward Telemark/bib pickup danced in my head.

Planes, Busses, and Moving Sidewalks

So the trip didn't go as planned (one or both of us will be going back soon), and we left for the Mexico City International airport at 4:45 AM Friday morning. For those unfamiliar with the City of 20 million, there is one hard and fast rule: Leave Early. Traffic can be a real pain. Armed with this knowledge, I had us on a 7:00 flight. This meant that the proper time to go to the airport was when the rest of the city slept. So the traffic at four forty-five was like my home town, St. Paul plus three hours (aka light rush-hour). We made it to the airport by 5:00 AM, and were on the 7:00 flight with no problem. I was feeling so close to northern Wisconsin, the frost was practically forming on my eyelashes. Pushback on time, take-off after a short wait on the tarmac, heading north!

The plane turned south shortly after take-off. I was wondering what sort of messed up flight routing they had going on when the captain reported that the plane could not pressurize. We were going back. So my first warm-up was racing fellow passengers back to ticketing to try to make the 9:30 to Houston. Peter and I settled happily for the 12:30 (Minneapolis arrival: 8:00 PM). It doesn't take 8 hours to fly from Mexico City to MSP. The time discrepancy was taken up in a 3 hour layover in Houston. Talk about cushion! No problem getting through customs in that amount of time. We were set, so set that it didn't phase us when boarding was a little on the late side. Nor did it phase us when the plane was over-loaded and we had to wait for Continental to buy 10 souls off the plane.

What did raise a bit of worry was the hour plus wait on the ground after we left the gate. We were still in good shape, but a spaghetti feed in Houston was out of the question. We finally took off and had some time to spare. Until we got into Houston air space and the captain announced that we had to hold for about 20 minutes. Peter did the math and concluded that we were out of luck; I began hoping the Minneapolis flight be delayed. Uncle Sam welcomed us home during MSP's boarding, and by the time we had cleared gate security our plane was gone.

There were two options to get home: one direct, the other via Memphis. The travel agent said that the direct flight was sold out, that our best bet was to get on the Memphis flight. The gate agent for the Minneapolis flight didn't think so, however. So while he was taking his time doing mysterious things on the computer, my temperament was crossing the border into Italy. It turned out there was plenty of room on the Minneapolis flight, which took off a mere 20 minutes late.

Meanwhile, back in St. Paul, Margie was scraping my skis for me. At about 10:00 PM she picked me up on her fifth loop around the airport, and by 10:30 we were driving. A speeding warning somewhere near Springbrook (never you mind how fast). The officer was very nice, and so was I: "Heading up to the Birkie?" [...] "Thanks officer, I'll slow it down." To cap off the longest Birkie Eve that I ever care to repeat, we made a fashionably late, and very quiet entrance into the cabin, laid down, and got the best 4 hours of sleep I've had in a long time.

The finish line

I don't think I've ever been quite so relaxed at the start as this year. I warned Bruce that Alex (of Enervit) probably didn't need to bother feeding me. He reassured me, "Margie told me the whole thing." (well, maybe not the WHOLE thing.) For me, the start was almost more of a finish. Not often do 50 kilometers feel like a formality stuck in the postlude. Nonetheless, the gun went off and that grand old race rocked and rolled into action. I felt pretty good for the first 40k though a bit on the run down side. Mercifully, Alex did feed me, supplementing the two liquid double shots that I stuffed down my waste. Mosquito Brook came and went, and my group decided to chase Kevin Brockman who rocked by (coming from a wave behind) like the steam train that he is, and I my legs decided that climbing was no longer much in vogue. Main Street began to sound really good, and what had been a race became more of a struggle, or maybe a journey. And, as the record shows, I skied the 2003 Birkie.