Tuesday, December 23, 2008

CONSIDERING THE BIRKIE

I’m seriously considering signing up for The Birkie this year. At first I was thinking about doing the Korte again because it’d let me compare my time to last year and (hopefully) I’d be able to see some improvement – although I think ski times mean a little less than running times, due to the variability snow conditions. If you’re not familiar with these races, think of the Birkie as a marathon and the Korte as a half.

Anyway, I’m thinking about the Birkie because the conditions are already great for skiing, so the ability to train for a longer race is a lot better than most years – especially since I’ll have the next 12 days off. Also, I already have about 5 hours on my skis this year and last year I didn’t even start skiing until Christmas Day. My longest ski so far this year is 1:20, which is a month ahead of last year. And, of course, my technique has improved from last year – at least a little. So I think I’m going to go for it.

Every once in awhile I’ll come across an ad on TV that strikes me as odd. This usually happens when I’m on the treadmill and I’m held captive by the TV. Well the other day I was watching a commercial for the Air Force. They were hyping one of their high-tech drones and their ability to remotely control it with a joy stick. Then the commercial shows the drone on the ground and 2 airmen are pushing it. I’m thinking, if this thing is so high-tech, why do they have to push it? You’d think there’d be a better way.

Quote of the Day;

“In my opinion, any day you find yourself at the starting line for the Birkie, it’s going to be a great day indeed!” – Scott Smith

6 comments:

Formulaic said...

Looks cold!!

Stay warm and have fun

Adam said...

I'm looking forward to reading about your training leading up to the Birkie! There's a notable lack of cross-country ski material on the internet. Sure, there's fasterskier, skinnyski, and a couple other spots, but compared to running - barely a murmur, especially in blogland.

Anonymous said...

Have you read any Malcolm Gladwell books? Tipping point, Bink, or Outliers?



Mark>NE

Anonymous said...

Blink even, lol.

Chad said...

Formulaic, I agree with the statement there's no bad weather, just bad clothes. If you dress correctly, it's not cold.

Adam, I guess skiers are too busy skiing to be blogging. I am amazed at how much further ahead I already feel this year. I skied 20K last night in 90 minutes and wasn't overly tired at the end.

Mark, no, I've never heard of Malcolm Gladwell.

Anonymous said...

Chad, I happened to catch part of an interview of Gladwell on C-span. He writes about advertising and what makes a good advetisement, sort of a pop psychologist I gather.

His latest book has been mentioned on letsrun because it is about obtaining mastery in a given field. He came up with a 10,000 hour rule, which he believes is the amount of time it takes to become an "outlier" or a person who excels in a given field.

There was discussion on letsrun as to whether or not his ideas could be utilized the areas of training/running/racing.

Being an ad man and a runner I thought you might want to check him out.



Mark>NE