Blood on the Tracks
BY MARK OLLINGER
It was Birkie weekend and we were searching for motivational music on the radio to get us pumped up for the races. My younger brother Michael was hoping for some bombastic 1980s hair band ballads, while my college roommate Alex and I lean towards 1970s classic rock. In remote northern Wisconsin, we had to settle for local NPR station WOJB, which tends to feature a heavy rotation of “Birkie Fever,” “Fry Bread,” “The Birkebeiner Song” and “Kortelopet Dreaming.” There’s nothing wrong with those songs, but after hearing them over and over we resorted to Spotify to satisfy our musical cravings. I wondered if Hibbing, Minnesota native and Nobel Laureate, Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan might someday contribute to the Birkebeiner song catalog.
Michael normally skis the Birkie, but this year he opted for the Kortelopet. Friday was a crisp and sunny day. A perfect day to grab a beer at Anglers Bar and heckle Michael as he skied down Main Street to the finish line. When he passed, Alex and I taunted him with chants of “Put your back into it!” At the finish he reminded us that what goes around comes around.
While Friday proved to be an excellent day to ski the Kortelopet, Saturday’s Birkebeiner race conditions promised to be a bit more challenging. Friday’s race temperatures stayed in the low 20s and were easy to wax for. The Saturday forecast included light snow and temperatures moving from the low 20s at the start to north of freezing during our expected finish time. Never confident in my kick waxing skills, I opted for my wax-less “fish scale” skis. I knew that I would be sacrificing speed, but wanted to be sure that I could climb. My hill training this year had been virtually non-existent, so I thought that a slower ski might be a little safer.
The weather forecast was spot on and my twelfth Birkie seemed to be progressing as expected. The skis climbed well and felt comfortable but slow on the descents. After the Timber Trail rest stop, my race took a literal turn for the worse. With two surgically repaired knees, fast turns are my biggest Birkie fear. There’s a sharp downhill turn soon after the rest stop. As I sped down and to the left, I had a difficult time holding my line and drifted into the path of a passing skier. We got tangled up and I went down. The other skier was able stay upright and keep going. The collision was my fault. The spill had me a bit disoriented as I hit the ground hard and rolled a few times. The course was converted to a mini yard sale, as my hat, glasses, and poles were strewn about. Blind as a bat, I was thankful to grab my glasses before they were run over. The glasses were a little loose, but on balance I considered myself lucky and skied on.
My tranquility was shattered at the next rest stop. I requested the usual cup of energy drink and banana to refuel. The volunteer handed me a cup with a matter of fact “You do know you’re bleeding, don’t you?” I rubbed my chin and my glove had blood on it. My race bib was sporting a few drops of blood as well. I asked if I was still bleeding and the response was “It looks like it’s stopped”. I was feeling fine, so I assumed that I had just cut my lip and moved on without giving it much more thought.
The alarm level of the volunteers escalated at each subsequent rest stop. At Fire Tower, I was greeted with “Are you feeling okay? That looks nasty” When I responded that I felt fine, she responded “That’s good, I don’t think you’ll need stitches.” in a not very convincing voice. At Boedecker Road, a concerned woman grabbed me by the arm and suggested that I drop out. Maybe I was scaring the other skiers. She insisted that I see medical staff on site. I reluctantly complied was escorted to the side. Two EMTs cleaned off my cheek and taped a large gauze pad to the left side of my face. It probably took about five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. One could rationally ask “Does it really matter if a guy who usually takes 5 and half hours to ski a race loses another five minutes?” Irrational Mark would answer “HELL YES IT MATTERS!”
Spectators along the way normally provide morale support during the long trek. A family of four in cow costumes was stationed at the Mosquito Brook Road crossing to cheer on the skiers. As the skier in front of me passed, they yelled “Looking good! Looking good!” When I passed, the father of the herd yelled “You don’t look so good!” This was coming from a guy wearing cow udders. Except for one more minor fall, the balance of the race was relatively uneventful.
Michael was waiting patiently on Main Street for heckling revenge. According to Michael, the gauze on the side of my face made it look like the Phantom of the Opera was skiing into town. Right after lumbering down the International Bridge, I heard chants of “Put your back into it! Put your back into it!” Apparently, the woman next to Michael took offense at his taunting of a cripple and told him to stop being mean to an injured skier. When he told her, that the “injured” skier was his older brother, she seemed to be more accepting and piled on yelling “Put your back into it. Put your back into it!”
Lumbering was the operative word as I crossed the finish line in a glacial five and a half hours. After so long out on the trail, I would have liked to linger at the finish line and bask in the afterglow of finishing another Birkie. Instead a helpful escort appeared insisting that I needed more immediate medical attention. I protested that I felt fine, but she persisted and with a wink told me she needed an excuse to get into a warm building. Maybe I was just grossing out the spectators.
It must have been an uneventful day, as there was only one other skier in the medical center. The staff outnumbered the patients by a wide margin. A fourth-year med student at Madison cleaned the remaining blood off my face and put anti-septic on the two-inch-long cut. I should not complain it is comforting to know that plenty of medical resources are available if a person really needs it. I just didn’t think I needed it.
With over five hours on the course, I had plenty of time to think about how bloody my face looked. Bob Dylan’s album “Blood on the Tracks” came to mind on the trail. The hit song “Tangled up in Blue” seemed to epitomize my day. Below I’ve taken a few liberties with Bob’s lyrics. Maybe it could appear on Highway 63 Revisited and featured on WOJB.
Tangled Up with You
Early one morning the sky was snowing
I was waiting in dread
Wondering if the course had changed at all
and temps would climb as they said
Wax techs they said my Birkebeiner
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like
my waxing skills and
fish scales weren’t fast enough
And I was standing in the back of the wave
Snow falling on my boots
Heading out for Hayward
Lord knows I’ve paid some dues
Getting through
Tangled up with you
He was on the right when we first met on a
left hand turn in the course
I tried to hold my line I guess
But I used a little too much force
I stayed upright as long as I could
but tumbled down at last
Split my cheek up on the left
while he was going past
he turned around to look at me
As he was skiing away
I heard him say over his shoulder
We’ll meet again someday
On the avenue
Tangled up with you
I had to ski in the great north woods
and got up after my spill
But it never did hurt all that much
And found were my glasses fell
So I strode off to the next rest stop
Where I was looking for to be refueled
Striding for a while on a waxless ski
Right outside of Double O
But all the while I was not alone
The next wave was close behind
I seen a lot of skiers
But he never escaped my mind
And I just stewed
Tangled up with you
She volunteered at the next rest stop
And I stopped in to fill my gut
She just kept looking at the blood on my face
flowing from a facial cut
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I’s just about to be proceeding
She was from Eau Claire and standing there
Said to me, “Don’t you know you’re bleeding?”
I muttered something under my breath
I rubbed the side of my face
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When I saw my bib spotted
with a crimson hue
Tangled up with you
She asked if I felt all right
And offered me a chair.
I said, “No thanks,”
“I gotta get from here to there”
Then she took water from her tray
And handed it to me
after all I’m in a race
inspired by a Norwegian prince
From the thirteenth century
And everyone was passing through
And skied with Nordic pride
gliding off every stride
Like it was written in the snow
so new
Tangled up with you
I skied with them up Bitch Hill
and it gave me a scare
There was fake a priest on top
doing rim-shots on a snare
Then he started telling bad jokes
And something inside of me cried
turns out my quad cramped
And froze up inside
And when finally the hill topped out
I became withdrawn
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keeping on
Like a bird that flew
Tangled up with you
So now I’ve hit my stride again
I got to get to Hayward Lake somehow
All the people that passed me;
catching them is motivation to me now
Some of them are free-stylers
Some use diagonal strides
Don’t know how they waxed their skis
I don’t know what they’re doing for glide
But me, I’m still on the course
Heading for Sunset Hill
We don’t always ski the same
We just climb it from a different point of view
Tangled up with you