What off season?

Cyclists and runners tend to think of this time of year as their "off season." If that's supposed the time to slack off and pack on a few pounds, I'm missing out. Winter somehow became this multisport dabbler's most hectic, race-crammed three-month period.

I blame the American Birkebeiner. In truth, I spread myself thinly, so several events share the blame.

As soon as I've capped an intense (by my standards) 18-week training program with a fall running marathon, I'm looking for snow. I don't prepare as comprehensively for the Birkie as I do for marathons, however. I try to race into shape by slogging through two or three other 40K-plus long ski races well before I'm ready.

In 2009 and 2010, I complicated things by simultaneously training for the Boston Marathon, which arrives all too soon in early April. My last two classic Birkies didn't benefit greatly from all the running, but at least I fared reasonably well in Beantown.

This year I'm taking my mediocrity to a whole other level. To all the ski racing I've added a double dose of insanity: snowshoe racing and ultrarunning.

For getting me into snowshoe racing, I blame nonracing snowshoe columnist Jim Joque, specifically his piece in the December issue. He excitedly announced that Cable, Wisconsin, would be hosting the 2011 U.S. Snowshoe Championship March 11-13 and outlined how relatively easy it is to qualify. I subsequently read Richard Lovett's piece in Marathon & Beyond about how he qualified for nationals in his first ever snowshoe race.

Turns out you earn a berth to the snowshoe nationals by being a dues-paying member of the U.S. Snowshoe Association and then either finishing in the top 10 overall in a 5K or 10K qualifying race, top five in your age group or by being no more than 30 percent slower than the winner in your age group. This means, Lovett wrote, "Most people can qualify simply by getting around the course."

Well, that I did at the January 8 Whitetail Ridge Snowshoe Race in River Falls, Wisconsin. Prior to the event, I had not run more than five miles on snowshoes, and even then not without stopping. But I figured I would increase my chances of qualifying if I tackled the longer 10K race.

I might have concluded otherwise had I first checked the previous year's race results. More than five guys in my age group finished in the top 10 that year, and that was before any tickets to nationals were on the line. I felt a huge spike of intimidation shortly before the race. Inside and out of the minus-10 degree wind, there were guys wearing shirts from snowshoe races held in 1996 and slipping on road running shoes bolted directly onto the most compact and lightest looking snowshoes. I was slightly comforted to see at two other competitors strapping on oversized asymmetrical snowshoes just like mine.

The craziness of the entire endeavor was evident again as soon as the race started. Through 75 yards of deep powder in an open field we charged and stumbled, kicking up a blizzard. Everyone fought for position before reaching the singletrack. By the time I reach the treeline, I was heaving for breath.

The course followed the switchback and ridgeline trails built by the Kinnickinnic Off-Road Cyclists also utilized as a WORS race venue. I huffed up the many climbs, exhausted myself trudging through drifting snow across the open sections, and tried not to trip on my crampons on the steep descents. With two miles still to go, I was cooked. I dropped four places and literally face planted on a sharp uphill corner. I finished 16th overall (46 ran the 10K) and third in my age group (out of four!). So it turns out I could have walked the entire way and still qualified for nationals.

That's the good news. The bad news is I qualified for nationals. I'm going to have to do figure out how to defy death on snowshoes again come March.

No sooner had the pain I experienced in River Falls faded, a week later my brother-in-law and I came close to suffering frostbite during the final third of the 42K SISU Ski Marathon on the ABR Trails to the piping hot Finnish soup and pasties waiting in Ironwood, Michigan. Six inches of snow fell the night before the race and a bitter wind blew another two inches into our faces throughout the event. It was an all-grip, no-glide affair that took us at least 45 minutes longer to complete than last year.

Whatever the Birkie throws at us remains to be seen. But I'm looking nervously beyond that and the snowshoe nationals to other events. I've actually signed up for the April 23 Chippewa 50K, a foot race on a section of Ice Age Trail north of Eau Claire, as a warmup to, gulp, the Ice Age 50, an ultra celebrating its 30th anniversary on May 14. I ran my one and only ultra, the Glacial Trail 50K, two years ago. But I've spent a few more years contemplating running farther than that. So the plan is to tackle the 50-mile course in the Southern Kettle Moraine in mid May.

The four- and five-hour ski races count as training for the ultras, right?