Symptoms of the Fever: Diagnosing the Birkie

As absurdity goes, the American Birkie is a fine specimen.  The race, while pleasant, is not as historic or familial as its Scandinavian counterpart.  It isn’t as epic or fun as many other American ski races including but not limited to the Craftsbury Marathon, the Crested Butte Alley Loop, or California’s Great Race.  What it does have is more than its share of crazy.  Not the good kind of crazy, the kind that pushes like Husaby or the we’re doing this for the kids crazy like any division’s Junior National staff, but a special blend of sanctimony and absurdity with just a hint of earnestness: the kind of crazy that relegates the race winner to the sixth wave, the kind that lives up to its history as a political cult. This week, crazy, swaddled in lycra will descend on Telemark, Wisconsin and a race more significant than the Olympics, more storied than US Nationals and larger than nearly every other major US race combined.  Send along the most absurd thing you see, overhear or partake of in the human spectacle that is the American Birkebeiner to JohnnyKlister@gmail.com.  Until one has fully suffered the fever, there is no chance of immunity against it’s symptoms.