Fun things I did during Birkie Week

Had a lot of fun during Birkie Week this year, except for that
painfull 3+ hours I spent trying to race on Saturday. My family and I
had a condo at Telemark this year so I was able to spend more time
participating in the festivities. Some of the more interesting things
we

1) Got to talk to Andrew Gerlach and thank him for all the newsy
emails.

2) Had a beer with the "ladies" of Bitch Hill. Just don't call them
Bitches. Apparently, when they first started doing it, they used to
actually bitch at people. Something along the lines of "you call that
skiing? Hurry up, you're way behind." And the early skiers are
generally good sports with some fun banter going on. But somewhere
around skier #1,000 that all changes. Skiers that are that far back
are so beat by the time they get to Bitch Hill that some of them would
actually break down and start crying when the ladies would bitch at
them. So now they usually just offer encouragement.

3) Had an interesting chat with Rebecca Dussault and a friend of hers.
It went something like this:

Me: Nice result today! Conditions were tough for a race this long.
Rebecca: Thanks. Oh, conditions weren't that bad.
Rebecca's friend: Not that bad? You told me this was the hardest
thing you've ever done.
Rebecca: Yeah, it was tougher than child birth.

Just knowing that someone as good as her had a tough time made me feel
better about how badly my race went.

Anyway, it was a really nice week to be on snow in northern Wisconsin.

Andy Schwartz
Milwaukee Wisconsin

I quit doing the Birkie this year, thanks to RSN's Jay Tegeder.

Jay recommended me for taking over the head announcer's job at the Birkie
and I took it. I couldn't pass up all of the schmoozing and possibilities in
the future. To be a race chief and head announcer of the largest ski
marathon in North America is quite an honor.

Fun things that I know about, "behind the scenes".

A Birkie skier broke his ski about 6km into the 51km race. He finished the
remaining 45km, skiing on one ski and using both poles.

A young man in the front of wave 9, proposed to his future bride right at
the start line. I announced the proposal over the PA system, so everyone
remaining at the start knew about it. WDIO TV from Duluth caught the whole
thing on tape. The woman was so emotional and weak from the proposal, that I
suspect that she had a hard time skiing when the canon went off.

My wife, Liz Wagner picked up some hardware, placing 3rd in her age group
for the Women's Birkie Classic.

Great job to all of you who did the race. I'll be watching for Jay Wenner,
Front Runner, and Brian May's race reports.

Greg Fangel



"Andy Schwartz" wrote in message
om...
Had a lot of fun during Birkie Week this year, except for that
painfull 3+ hours I spent trying to race on Saturday. My family and I
had a condo at Telemark this year so I was able to spend more time
participating in the festivities. Some of the more interesting things
we

1) Got to talk to Andrew Gerlach and thank him for all the newsy
emails.

2) Had a beer with the "ladies" of Bitch Hill. Just don't call them
Bitches. Apparently, when they first started doing it, they used to
actually bitch at people. Something along the lines of "you call that
skiing? Hurry up, you're way behind." And the early skiers are
generally good sports with some fun banter going on. But somewhere
around skier #1,000 that all changes. Skiers that are that far back
are so beat by the time they get to Bitch Hill that some of them would
actually break down and start crying when the ladies would bitch at
them. So now they usually just offer encouragement.

3) Had an interesting chat with Rebecca Dussault and a friend of hers.
It went something like this:

Me: Nice result today! Conditions were tough for a race this long.
Rebecca: Thanks. Oh, conditions weren't that bad.
Rebecca's friend: Not that bad? You told me this was the hardest
thing you've ever done.
Rebecca: Yeah, it was tougher than child birth.

Just knowing that someone as good as her had a tough time made me feel
better about how badly my race went.

Anyway, it was a really nice week to be on snow in northern Wisconsin.

Andy Schwartz
Milwaukee Wisconsin

I was lucky enough to be the young man who proposed at the race. Thank you
so much Greg! I really appreciate your help--It couldn't have gone better!
By the way we skiied the "race" together and we did manage to finish. It
was her first time skiiing more than about 12k.

By the way, She had no plans to ski the race on Friday night when we arrived
at Telemark to meet friends. But I had this planned, so I "spontaniously"
suggested we ski the Korte together as a tour. Fortunately, after some arm
twisting, she agreed it'd beat watching everyone else ski. It all fell
into place and it was a big surprise to her.

Jack Davis

"Greg Fangel" wrote in message
news:72f_b.104887$jk2.475316@attbi_s53...
I quit doing the Birkie this year, thanks to RSN's Jay Tegeder.

Jay recommended me for taking over the head announcer's job at the Birkie
and I took it. I couldn't pass up all of the schmoozing and possibilities
in
the future. To be a race chief and head announcer of the largest ski
marathon in North America is quite an honor.

Fun things that I know about, "behind the scenes".

A Birkie skier broke his ski about 6km into the 51km race. He finished the
remaining 45km, skiing on one ski and using both poles.

A young man in the front of wave 9, proposed to his future bride right at
the start line. I announced the proposal over the PA system, so everyone
remaining at the start knew about it. WDIO TV from Duluth caught the whole
thing on tape. The woman was so emotional and weak from the proposal, that
I
suspect that she had a hard time skiing when the canon went off.

My wife, Liz Wagner picked up some hardware, placing 3rd in her age group
for the Women's Birkie Classic.

Great job to all of you who did the race. I'll be watching for Jay Wenner,
Front Runner, and Brian May's race reports.

Greg Fangel



"Andy Schwartz" wrote in message
om...
Had a lot of fun during Birkie Week this year, except for that
painfull 3+ hours I spent trying to race on Saturday. My family and I
had a condo at Telemark this year so I was able to spend more time
participating in the festivities. Some of the more interesting things
we

1) Got to talk to Andrew Gerlach and thank him for all the newsy
emails.

2) Had a beer with the "ladies" of Bitch Hill. Just don't call them
Bitches. Apparently, when they first started doing it, they used to
actually bitch at people. Something along the lines of "you call that
skiing? Hurry up, you're way behind." And the early skiers are
generally good sports with some fun banter going on. But somewhere
around skier #1,000 that all changes. Skiers that are that far back
are so beat by the time they get to Bitch Hill that some of them would
actually break down and start crying when the ladies would bitch at
them. So now they usually just offer encouragement.

3) Had an interesting chat with Rebecca Dussault and a friend of hers.
It went something like this:

Me: Nice result today! Conditions were tough for a race this long.
Rebecca: Thanks. Oh, conditions weren't that bad.
Rebecca's friend: Not that bad? You told me this was the hardest
thing you've ever done.
Rebecca: Yeah, it was tougher than child birth.

Just knowing that someone as good as her had a tough time made me feel
better about how badly my race went.

Anyway, it was a really nice week to be on snow in northern Wisconsin.

Andy Schwartz
Milwaukee Wisconsin

Andy Schwartz wrote:

3) Had an interesting chat with Rebecca Dussault and a friend of hers.
It went something like this:

Me: Nice result today! Conditions were tough for a race this long.
Rebecca: Thanks. Oh, conditions weren't that bad.
Rebecca's friend: Not that bad? You told me this was the hardest
thing you've ever done.
Rebecca: Yeah, it was tougher than child birth.

Nice stories. I don't know, but wondered if her entry was last minute
and whether she had a chance to ski most of the course. With rolling
hills that seem to keep coming, it's probably a different kind of course
than she's been on recently and I wonder if she had a team out there
with her to help pace, or she just had to latch onto whoever was
nearby.

In general, I had also wondered how the Subaru men would fare against
the Italians. It's clear to take them on you need to show up in
numbers. Zanatel later said that he was a bit cooked from the sprints
on Thursday, so having a strong team really helps. Obviously, the US
skiers couldn't quite stay with the Europeans, except for Mark
Gilbertson apparently hanging on their tail. Would love to hear a race
report from him. Anyone know him?

Gene

"Gene Goldenfeld" wrote in message
...
Obviously, the US
skiers couldn't quite stay with the Europeans, except for Mark
Gilbertson apparently hanging on their tail. Would love to hear a race
report from him. Anyone know him?

Gene

if you're trying to hang on to him, marc can make you hurt on hilly courses
like no one else. or in soft stuff. or both. after the birkie we were
talking about his mora vasaloppet race of two weeks ago and he said
(paraphrasing here) "chad is so tough to beat in mora. i tried to put it to
him the whole race - skied a lot harder than i did here [at this year's
birkie] and i couldn't shake him." this coming from the only american to
finish in the front group. i guess that's more a story about how every race
is different and how different terrain affects different skiers than it is a
story about marc. fwiw.
phil

I'll agree with you there, Phil, but if you know Mark's email it would
be interesting to hear from him about what it was like working (and not
working) with the front group.

To add to a fun thing during Birkie week, I met rsn contributer Phillip
Nelson from near Green Bay. We skied some of the demos Friday a little
and he invited me to a friendly party of West Bend, WI skiers Sat
evening.

Gene

"p.bowen" wrote:

"Gene Goldenfeld" wrote in message
...
Obviously, the US
skiers couldn't quite stay with the Europeans, except for Mark
Gilbertson apparently hanging on their tail. Would love to hear a race
report from him. Anyone know him?

Gene

if you're trying to hang on to him, marc can make you hurt on hilly courses
like no one else. or in soft stuff. or both. after the birkie we were
talking about his mora vasaloppet race of two weeks ago and he said
(paraphrasing here) "chad is so tough to beat in mora. i tried to put it to
him the whole race - skied a lot harder than i did here [at this year's
birkie] and i couldn't shake him." this coming from the only american to
finish in the front group. i guess that's more a story about how every race
is different and how different terrain affects different skiers than it is a
story about marc. fwiw.
phil

GG wrote: "Obviously, the US skiers couldn't quite stay with the
Europeans, except for Mark
Gilbertson apparently hanging on their tail. Would love to hear a
race
report from him. Anyone know him?"

Rob Bradlee has gotta know Marc Gilbertson.

I'm a fan of Marc G who skis with tremendous courage & heart. He is
unafraid of blowing up and has always gone out to challenge the
Italians. Generally it pays off with a top-American finish, or close
to it. Sometimes he has come up unlucky on Main Street, but this year
he was "there." You can see the mens finish on skinnyski.com. Tight
racing.

It was Marc with Babikov (of Canada) plus 4 Italians & Stanislav Rezac
in a bunch finish. So with that kind of team presence, yeah, the
Italians are surely going to do well. We need to put more Americans on
Main Street. This was the best North American finish I am aware of
recent times. I wish that Marc could hook up with some Factory guys
(like Lars Flora) all the way to play the front pack tactics. We know
he can play the game, but he is simply out manned at the line. It's
pretty tough to win there. Rezac did very well on main street too, but
he skied in the middle of the Italians.

There was a cool photo in the Duluth paper of the lead pack @ Mosquito
Brook with Lars Flora in the lead, and all the Italians in tow, tip to
tail. #7 Marc G was in the mix then too. Writeup said he had taken the
lead at some point and slowed them down for other Americans to catch
up.

Just finished watching the finish on video. Very cool. Gilbertson
didn't have a chance. He's one heck of a skier but doesn't have
closing speed the way the Italians do, or Giese at Mora for that
matter. I've heard rumours of the Italians playing games with tactics
and such. With that in mind, it seems a little surprising they didn't
go three wide in the finishing sprint, i.e., everyone just filed in
behind Zanatel. They were leading into the home stretch and could
have locked it up for the team by taking all the lanes. As it was,
Rezac got a clear shot to the line, but coming from 4th didn't have
the real estate to get by Zanatel. He looked pretty happy with 2nd
place though (sprinting past Fauner isn't too shabby!).

Cheers,
Brian

In article , Dell
Todd wrote:
I'm a fan of Marc G who skis with tremendous courage & heart. He is
unafraid of blowing up and has always gone out to challenge the
Italians. Generally it pays off with a top-American finish, or close
to it. Sometimes he has come up unlucky on Main Street, but this year
he was "there." You can see the mens finish on skinnyski.com. Tight
racing.

Yeah, I know Mark from the Elite Sprints and the Press Conference at
the Birkie the last 6 years or so. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.
You're not a stalker are you Gene? Zach Caldwell probably knows how to
get ahold of him.

Jay Tegeder
"Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT

Gene Goldenfeld wrote in message ...
Andy Schwartz wrote:

3) Had an interesting chat with Rebecca Dussault and a friend of hers.
It went something like this:

Me: Nice result today! Conditions were tough for a race this long.
Rebecca: Thanks. Oh, conditions weren't that bad.
Rebecca's friend: Not that bad? You told me this was the hardest
thing you've ever done.
Rebecca: Yeah, it was tougher than child birth.

Nice stories. I don't know, but wondered if her entry was last minute
and whether she had a chance to ski most of the course. With rolling
hills that seem to keep coming, it's probably a different kind of course
than she's been on recently and I wonder if she had a team out there
with her to help pace, or she just had to latch onto whoever was
nearby.

In general, I had also wondered how the Subaru men would fare against
the Italians. It's clear to take them on you need to show up in
numbers. Zanatel later said that he was a bit cooked from the sprints
on Thursday, so having a strong team really helps. Obviously, the US
skiers couldn't quite stay with the Europeans, except for Mark
Gilbertson apparently hanging on their tail. Would love to hear a race
report from him. Anyone know him?

Gene

Rob Bradlee has gotta know Marc Gilbertson.

I see Marc at lots of races. He's a super guy and a great skier. Very
outgoing and charming. He works as a school teacher and just races on
weekends. I don't have his email, but if I bump into him later this
year I'll be sure to ask for details of the Battle d'Italia. Great to
see him as top American. He's got the chops.

Rob