Skiing the Norwegian Birkebeiner
By Jay Tegeder
(Reprinted with the permission of the author for exclusive use by xcskiworld.com.)
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Part Four: Friday and the Trip to Lillehammer
Friday, March 20th was the day before the Norwegian Birkebeiner. Dave and I spent the morning at Terje's in-laws house waxing skis. After consulting the ski shops for the weather forecast for the race, we glide waxed with Swix HF 8 and ironed in Toko Green hard wax as a binder. Next, we took the train back to Bull Ski and Kajakk to get some more kick wax (you can never have enough!). Around 12PM, we met Terje and his family back the house, packed and made our way to their cabin in Sjusjoen, just above Lillehammer. Driving through Oslo, we went through several tunnels blasted out of the mountainous terrain. On the eastern side of town, we passed by Nannestad, home to the two best skiers in the world, Bjorn Daehlie and Thomas Alsgaard.
Our trip took us past Lake Mjosa, the largest lake in Norway surrounded by hills 350 meters high, similar to Minnesota's North Shore of Lake Superior. The lake is around 100 kilometers long but fairly narrow. Anyway, we had Mjosa on our left side for about half of the journey to Lillehammer. When we came to Hammar, Terje pointed out the "Viking Ship" home to the speed skating events at the 1994 Olympics. They continue to hold speed skating events there as well as cross country skiing sprint races.
After two hours, we arrived in Lillehammer and immediately went to one of the ski shops. While there, we got the latest weather and wax forecast and then headed over to Hakan's Hall, home of the 1994 Olympic hockey finals and current race headquarters for the Birkebeiner Rennet. Dave and I got our bibs and then Terje drove us to the ski stadium (home of the Olympic cross country events) so we could coordinate where we would meet after the race. From there, we drove up the mountain to the cabin and made our final race preparations which included putting on Swix Extra Blue kick wax followed by Swix VF 40. Klister wasn't needed for the race!
