A robust defense of the Korteloppet
by Bill Baldus As the initial Birkebeiner registration cutoff approaches on June 30, most of us are following through on this early summer ritual like robots or better lemmings off a cliff. Find a Birch Scroll,
tear out the registration blank, fill it out, guess at the number of Birkes and Kortes you've finished for those little boxes on the form, find an envelope, find a stamp and send it off to P.O. Box 911 in beautiful Hayward, Wisconsin.
There. Done. In eight months, ready or not, you'll face another Birkie.
Some time ago, I met with my personal Sports Participation, Hobby Proliferation and Family Stabilization Board (SPHPFSB) and asked them to facilitate a number of focus groups made up
of age-group competitors, family members and colleagues from work. After gathering sufficient data, the SPHPFSB recommended that I consider skiing the Korte in '01 for just one year.
"Heresy!" I shrieked, and quickly checked the 23K box. There. Done. I could relax. Just parking an extra block from work would be sufficient training.
Let the kids wake up all night every night and be sick from Halloween right on through St. Patrick's Day, I can be ready for the 23K Korte by late
February. As my friend John Kerry has been saying, "Bring it on!"
One caveat should you decide to heed my advice. Be prepared to take a significant amount of flack for your decision. There's the name calling. I've been called a pansy, a wimp and a neo-conservative all on just one hill for registering for the Korte-shorty. Hey, nobody running Grandma's Marathon calls the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon a girl's race!
I'm fine with a little ribbing, what's really tough to take is
the pity. You can see it in their eyes. Then they'll handle you with kid gloves and ask you in a voice that should be reserved for kindergartners with strep throat: "Hills too steep for you, Billy?" or "Do you just need more rest, honey? Did you get plain pooped out last year, pumpkin?" Or, after a couple years' hiatus from the long race, "Now you've done the whole ... wait ... have you ever finished the full Birkie?"
"Yes!" I shout in self defense.
"Yes, I've been doing the Birkie since I was 7, before they even had the Barnebirke." Kids just did the whole thing back then, no biggie.
If you do the Korte for a couple of years in a row, people might actually forget and start to wonder out loud if you can even finish a 50K. You have a couple options for responses. You can gather up all your Birkie year finisher pins and attach them to a sash and wear it around. (I just used my old one from Boy Scouts.). You can fold an
especially favorable Birch Scroll results issue in half and carry it around in your back pocket as a reference for others and/or an affirmation for yourself. Or you can do another marathon during the season and point to it as proof.
I've had to do a combination of all three. "Yes!" I screamed, thumping my sashed belly with a well-worn 1988 Birch Scroll. "I'll be finishing the Sibley Tour where moose and wolves crap right on the trail while you're settling into post-season
slough with a bag of lime-flavored Tostitos watching the X-Games on ESPN!"
The course is wonderful. If you have yet to ski the Korte race course, go do it. It's extremely well-marked, stunningly beautiful and always well-groomed. The first 7K are with the masses on the main Birkie trail. You take just enough lengthy climbs to confirm last summer's decision to pursue the Korte registration. After those monster hills, you will really appreciate taking that glorious left turn onto a
narrower, quieter path. Depending on where you are in the pack, things can get very quiet as you find yourself skiing with just a partner or two. I often feel like a frumpy chaperone on a wilderness field trip for high school boys from the city.
There's rolling terrain with plenty of turns and lots of variety. After traveling backward on some of the Telemark trails, you pop out on the John Bauer, skirt the golf course (that they won't let us ski on any more because of irrational fears and
a private-property mind set), take a few World Cup-type hills toward the end, and blast out of the woods with a full view of Telemark Lodge just waiting for you to bring it on home. Across and down a downhill, loop by the horse-wagon area and hammer up a slope to finish in front of the concrete slab where the coliseum used to be.
No tricky logistics either, just catch a bus to your parking lot. Think it over, it could be a nice change of pace.
Bill Baldus works in career development in
the Twin Cities. When not skiing, he plays frisbee and catch with his wife and two boys and does as much running as is domestically appropriate. | 
