I Just Completed My 20th American Birkebeiner

20 years seems like a long time, but it goes by in the blink of an eye

Hey everyone!

Happy Monday! We’ve got another snow day here in Chippewa Falls (actually it’s an ice day), so they canceled school.

I’m glad they had the good sense to cancel. You can see the ice forming on the branches on the trees outside my window. Initially they said it was going to be a 2 hour delay, and I turned to my wife and said, “No, the kids are staying home, I’m not driving them to school in this.”

She agreed, then the notification came that they were canceling.

Here’s a picture that I took through the window, it’s not great quality because I used digital zoom, but I’m not going outside, (you can see the ice):

We’ve had a TON of school cancellations this year. We had two days off last week because of 15 inches of snow in three days. They said on the news that has only happened about a dozen times in the last 100 years.

As long as you don’t have to drive to work, I always find the huge dumps of snow to be a blast. We go skiing, build snow forts, and basically live our lives with the delight human beings are supposed to be able to experience.

You can’t really go out and play in an ice storm, but we just need a rest anyway. Last weekend was the American Birkebeiner. It’s the grueling, annual, cross-country ski race I do. I even wrote a book about it (if you pick up a copy, please leave a review… a positive review):

We were out of the house for two days and everyone is exhausted, even the dog, especially me!

If you don’t know what the American Birkebeiner is, let me just sum it up: It’s a 30+ mile race that’s basically all uphill (not much of an exaggeration) and run in sub-freezing conditions. I think the start temperature was around 10 degrees this year and we were grateful it wasn’t sub zero. You get so tired you want to stop and cry.

Some of you are snorting at that, but that just proves you aren’t as tough as you think you are. The toughest people are always the ones who admit that every human being has a breaking point because they’ve actually been to theirs.

It’s like when you go to a bar and somebody starts boasting about how he once wrestled a bear (this has happened to me before). Don’t be afraid about the guy who claims to have wrestled a bear. He’s always lying. Be afraid of guy who has a reputation for being tough who inexplicably gets a really serious look on his face and says, “No, it’s not possible to beat a bear in a wrestling match.”

If a bunch of people look at him in surprise as if to suggest saying something like that is totally out of character for the guy, then the only conclusion you can arrive at is that this guy knows you can’t beat a bear in a wrestling match because he’s actually lost to one.

That story got kind of long winded but I love it so I’m keeping it in.

“No, you can’t beat a bear. A bear has unbelievable strength!”

You can’t even laugh at a guy when he says something like that. Again, I’ve had this conversation.

Anyway, although I’ve never wrestled a bear, I have wrestled the American Birkebeiner trail quite a number of times (how about that segue?). Saturday was my 20^th, which is kind of a big deal.

Now, I did a write up on Medium and I’m going to share a paid link with you and a free link for those of you who aren’t on Medium. If you enjoy my writing, the best way to support me (at no cost to you) is to sign up for Medium via my referral link. Once you do that, you’re paying me every time you read one of my articles, and I really appreciate it.

So, for all the paid Medium members, here’s my paid link:

Reflections on Becoming a Birchlegger (PAID)

And here’s the free link for those of you who haven’t signed up with my referral link yet (you have my permission to share this link):

Reflections on Becoming a Birchlegger (FREE)

If you don’t have time to read either of them, suffice it to say that 20 years goes by in the blink of an eye and I’m grateful for everything I have.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me if I keep things succinct today. Like I said, the kids are off from school, so I am delighted to have the opportunity to go and play with them. These are the great days!

With that theme in mind, here’s this week’s poll.

Grr… the poll only allows me 5 options. I guess I’ll have to do another poll:

Okay, that’s enough clowning around for today. Be well, be safe, talk to you next Monday!