Med Finn og Ola på Sjusjøen helga før Birken

Vi gikk fra Sjusjøen i tjukk tåke ned til Kvarstad hvor det var lettere.

Birkebeinerrennet 2009

I was feeling pretty good in the start area after covering the thick layer of Chola and medium layer Flexi klister from yesterdays base waxing, with two medium layers of VR55. 20 mins before start I entered my group (Pulje 8), found my start spot, put my skiis down, all without any testing of the skiis. With 10 mins left I went to take a leak. Back at the startspot with 4 mins left, I put the skiis on and noticed the incredible kick. Due to the fact that I missed last years race, and my three previous attempts were lousy, I was placed in this slow group, so when the gun went off the pace was comfortable. I advanced well up to Skramstad a bit faster than in 2003 when I skied my personal best (3:45). Over the first mountain it was OK with decent pace. The max heart rate was reached several times between 3 km and here at the top at 12 km, where I was 1 hour and 9 mins into the race (before the downhill to Dambua). I now passed many from Pulje 7 who had started 5 mins earlier. The max speed was reached on the way down from Raufjellet at 22.9 km, 1 hour 54 mins and 54 sek  into the race.

Towards the half-way point at Kvarstad I noticed with pleasure that my doble poling benefited from the serious lumber-jack activities I had been engaged in over the last months. I have cut down the big tuja by my house, due to conflict with the upcoming building activities.

So at Kvarstad I was 5 mins ahead of “merket” and managed to fight my way to Sjusjøen with still 4 mins margin. For a while now the tracks had more or less disintegrated into glaced zig-zags and the worse, making for slow skiing. However my kick was still superb aiding me over the finish line 3 mins ahead of “merket”. Yippi!

On the bus down to Haakons Hall the person next to me commented on my hairy skiis – and yes I had plenty of klister left. Perhaps too much. I am not sure. I like the good kick, but of course the skiis did not have optimal glide.  These tradeoff discussions……

In summary a good race for me. On the internet results I later noticed that I was number one of the 83 skiers in my age group who started in Pulje 8. Not bad at all. My performance statistics for the race was:

1. Time (hours:mins:sec): 3:56:33
2. Energy spent (calories): 3688
3. Average heart rate (beats/min): 154
4. Max  heart rate (beats/min): 171
5. Max speed (km/h): 50.3

Var på Blåfjellet (1397 m.o.h.) i går. Vindstille og skyfri himmel.