Off The Couch: Birkie raises cap, Wodke heads to Boston, Mad City 50K & Trailbreaker Marathon on Saturday

On the "Off The Couch" blog, Tom Held reports the organizers of the American Birkebeiner will raise the cap on skiers for the 2013 event to 9,500 -- up from 9,000, which was reached this past February.

The new owners of the Telemark Resort are also actively wooing the Birkie back with a proposal to build a heated expo center. For the last two years, while the resort was in foreclosure and its future iffy, the Birkie moved registration to the Hayward Middle School.

Earlier this week, Held wrote an inspiring profile of Chris Wodke who will not let a neurological disease prevent her from running the Boston Marathon next month. For Silent Sports two years ago, Wodke wrote about the difficulty she had running the Community First Fox Cities Half Marathon.

Held also turned in posts about the young ultrarunners looking to run fast at the Mad City 50K in Madison, Wis., and the nearly 1,000-strong field expected at the Trailbreaker Marathon in Waukesha, Wis. Both races will take place tomorrow, March 31.