My Mom The Winter Warrior

On a frigid January afternoon in northern Wisconsin, my 64 year old mom was out cross-country skiing on one of the toughest trails in the world. She was preparing for the 50 kilometer American Birkebeiner when she hit a patch of ice, slipped, fell, and blew out her ACL.

Now she was in trouble.

Cross-country skiing isn’t like running a marathon. If you get tired during a marathon you can stop and rest. If you stop and rest when you’re out cross-country skiing, your sweat turns to ice and you freeze to death.

There are many tricks to navigating Wisconsin weather and the residents are familiar with all of them. The phrase, “it’s freezing,” has a completely different meaning in Wisconsin than elsewhere. The definition of freezing is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but no matter how cold it gets “it’s freezing,” is the most common descriptive. The result is that people in Wisconsin will only admit it’s freezing when it’s -20 or -30, more than 50 degrees colder than freezing. In Wisconsin, true freezing is actually considered pretty warm.

On that day, Mom considered herself lucky, the temperature was in the teens.

Cold temperatures can be managed if you know how to dress properly. The secret is not over-dressing. Sweat is your enemy. If you sweat too much you dehydrate, and when the sweat soaks your clothing you freeze.

You have to find a balance. You wear enough clothing to protect you, but you rely on your exertion to keep you warm. Your body is like an engine that runs hot. There’s an old saying in skiing, “If you’re not cold at the start line you’ve already lost.”

After more than 20 Birkies, mom had learned how to dress. Her clothing was made from lightweight, high-tech fabrics. It blocked the wind in front, but was vented at the back to allow the expulsion of excess body heat. It was the perfect outfit for hard, physical exercise.

Unfortunately, that meant it was the worst choice for being stranded out on the trail.

As she sat on the hard-packed snow, knee throbbing, she assessed the situation. Her car was 10 kilometers away, and the next road crossing was 4 kilometers. She hadn’t brought a phone with her because she didn’t like having her sessions interrupted. To make matters worse, she’d picked one of the hardest sections of the trail for the day’s workout, and that meant it was unlikely she’d meet any other skiers.

Her only remaining choice was to crawl. So, she gritted her teeth, ignored the pain, and commenced to pull herself down the trail.

The American Birkebeiner has been called the Boston Marathon of cross-country skiing. It is an enormous celebration with around ten-thousand total participants. The race commemorates an event from Norwegian history when two warriors saved the country’s infant king from assassination by whisking him away across the forests and mountains that separate Lillehammer and Trondheim.

The warriors called themselves Birkebeiners for the strips of birch bark they used as gaiters to provide protection from the snow.

For many, the annual American Birkebeiner is the focal point for the entire year. It’s an event that keeps you honest. You can’t try to complete it if you aren’t prepared. There’s no cheating, no cramming for the test. The course is grueling and technical on a good day. On a bad day with sub-zero temperatures, wind, storm, and snow, it is absolutely brutal.

If you’ve ever had the privilege of doing the Birkie, you’ll notice a wonderful camaraderie. There’s something about enduring a very difficult trial together which bonds people forever. The starting area is like a vast family reunion. You see people you sometimes only see once a year, and you remember them, and you encourage them, and you make a commitment to help get them through the day.

The Birkie is a beat down, but everyone who skis it approaches the moment with joy. At the Birkie you learn that there’s nothing wrong with hardship as long as we can face it together.

Mom grew up in Hayward, WI which is the race’s destination city. Her family home was on Lake Hayward near where the race passes before finishing on Main Street. She often reflected on how when she finished, her dad would walk out to stand on the lake to wait and watch for her.

Her dad passed away many years ago, but to this day when she passes that spot, overwhelmed by the delirium and exhaustion of the event, she can still see him.

There’s no way she’s ever going to give up that race.

But the Birkie is hard, brutally hard. So hard, in fact, that it almost prepares you for life.

She couldn’t tell you how long it took, but she eventually crawled to the road crossing at Mosquito Brook. She was cold, her leg had settled into numbness. Now came another choice. Should she sit and wait and hope for a passing car? Or should she continue to crawl and try to make it to her own vehicle? Neither choice was attractive. Her car was far away, and there was no certainty that anyone would be passing through anytime soon.

But the longer she sat, the colder she would get.

If she’d had more time to make up her mind, she probably would have crawled on. But right then, a rusty red pick-up truck pulled up, and the door swung open to reveal the kindly face of an elderly farmer. “Are you okay young lady?”

“I ruined my knee. Can you take me to the hospital?”

“Sure thing, what were you doing anyway?”

“Training for the Birkie.”

“Respect!”

She missed the Birkie that year, and one other year when she blew out the other ACL in an incident unrelated to skiing. Now she begrudgingly carries a phone in a zip lock bag with the battery taken out to prevent interruptions. She wears knee supports on both legs, large metal contraptions like you see NFL linemen use. When she wakes up to strap on her protection on Birkie morning, it’s like she’s preparing for war.

Now she’s more than 70, and she’s done the Birkie over 30 times. I’ve done half as many, and I’m 45, and I don’t know how she does it.

There are years when I’m out there and I confess, I feel like giving up. I’ve been in races where friends of mine who are superior skiers have abandoned due to conditions. Once, it snowed 18 inches during the race, leaving us to trudge and fight for every grueling inch. I considered dropping out, but I knew that if I quit and she finished, she’d never let me live it down.

So I made my way to the end, got my finisher’s pin, and waited for her to arrive. You're always grateful when you finish.

“That was a tough one!”

Stay positive, keep moving, and you’ll make it.

These days it’s become more common for people who care about my mom to suggest she should consider hanging it up. The race is long. The race is cold. The race is dangerous. They worry about her, they think maybe it’s too much.

But not me. I tell her to go for it. The Birkie is the race that defines her. It’s hard, it’s brutal, and it’s glorious, just like life.

And you don’t give up on life. You stay positive through the hard times and you make it to the end.

Someday I’ll ski the Birkie and mom won’t be there. But just like she sees her dad on the course, I will see her. I hope to bring my own kids along and pass on the lesson that was taught to me.

Tough times are inevitable, but never quit, never succumb to despair. If we commit ourselves to preparation and we always stick together, we can overcome anything. What better lesson is there than that?