Birkebeiner Bonanza

It's been a little over a week since I raced the Birkebeiner in Edmonton, but this is the first time that I've been back and able to post. Every year on Valentine's weekend the entire van der Meer clan skis the Canadian Birkebeiner, a 55km ski race near Edmonton. Despite the fact we can't seem to get ourselves organized to spend Christmas together, Birkebeiner weekend finds the whole family waxed and ready to go. The Birkebeiner is based on the old Norwegian legend where two Viking warriors strapped Prince Haakon to their back and skiied 55 km to safety. These days the baby is replaced by ergonomically designed backpacks filled with the latest in cold weather clothing, camelback water pouches and caolrie packed power bars.

The highlight of this year's ski was the fact that I, for the first time in my 20 year history of skiing the Birkebeiner, was the first van der Meer to cross the finish line...or so I thought. In a cruel twist of fate, my moment of glory was dashed by some mysterious Scott Vandermeer, who unknowingly destroyed my greatest wish. I should probably just be happy with a personal best, although if I ever meet this Scott Vandermeer I may have to accidentaly take his knees out.

The Birkebeiner tradition goes beyond skiing, there is a very important eating component to the week-end. Not only do we go straight from the finish line to the Viking Feast, we also follow up our marathon ski with a marathon buffet. The Coast Terrace Inn buffet is an extravaganza of food. This year, I decided to try moderation, since the last few years I've left the building in excrutiating pain (ironic that after the weekend my stomach hurts more than my legs). I went with a three plate approach:

The other important week-end event is the crowning of the family award. This award goes to the family who has skiied the most amount of kilometers. This year, our good friends the Tetrault's won; a rather interesting fact considering they had 4 skiiers and we had 5 skiiers, and we all skiied the same distance. In the end, a nicer family couldn't have won the award (except us, I guess). TThe winner of the Family category got the ugliest beer mug I've ever seen. The Tetrault's joined us at our buffet breakfast, where Roger generously presented us with our own 2nd place Family Award. You can probably use the photos to figure out the winner and loser.

Sierra posted this on Feb 20, 2007 from the outside | | permanent link