SEELEY, Wisconsin. Somewhere way back I think I read that the “bonkâ€, brought on by glycogen depletion, is pretty much all in your head. You really have not lowered the level of glycogen to a point where it physically starves the muscles of energy. Instead, the brain has a safety mechanism that kicks in way before this happens, causing all of the familiar mental anguish that effectively keeps you from really hurting yourself. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I can attest to the fact that my brain has never let me down when it comes to suffering.
 .jpg width=400 height=300><BR><font size=1 face=verdana>Author David Zink</font><BR><br />
I don’t want to bore anyone with a summary of my complete Birkie experience. Instead, I will just tell you about the last 5k. Up to that point, I was not having a “great†race, but heck, I was skiing with a group that was pushing me as hard as I could go, and I was having fun. Somewhere around this point in the course, most Birkie skiers start thinking about the final 3k stretch on the lake before turning up onto Main Street and the finish line.</p>
<p>The problem was that instead of thinking about the lake, my thoughts started drifting toward donut holes. I know this to be the first phase of my brain’s safety mechanism, equivalent to the low fuel light on the dash of my truck. No lectures about drinking and eating, please — during the race I had done an excellent job sucking down an entire camel back filled with hydration drink and a total of 3 gel packs, and I don’t think I could have absorbed any more energy if I had ingested it. Instead, I think it just boils down to a simple equation: I had expended slightly more energy than I had stored or could add back during the race.</p>
<p>As I worked to stay with the skier just ahead of me, I started thinking about the likelihood that there would be donut holes just beyond the finish line. They had them at National Masters, this year, and I reasoned (optimistically) that the premier marathon ski race in North America would not leave out such an important detail. I like cinnamon donut holes the best, but I would be willing to settle for the glazed if I had to. Although this time I would remove my gloves before indulging, because just after I got back from Marquette, our dog Skip ended up eating the right thumb and index finger right off my good pair of Tokos. Not that he would be opposed to ruining a perfectly clean glove if he had to, but I am sure he found the glazed fingers especially tasty.</p>
<p>Somewhere just before the flat lake stretch, I lost the group I was with. The tunnel vision and stars were creeping in, and I just could not turn my skis over fast enough to hold my position up a couple of the final hills. We hit the lake and I realized that the last stretch was going to be a painful solo push into a headwind. The funny thing was that there was another straggler from the group I had just lost some 50 meters ahead of me, and when I looked over my shoulder, there was a lone skier about the same distance behind. Each of us knew about the other two, and like stubborn mules, each of us kept plodding along with our heads down, into the wind. In hindsight, you could argue that I was the dumbest, because I could have dropped back and worked with the skier behind me, probably making up much more than I would lose dropping back. A mental giant I was not, however. Every last brain cell was focused on donut holes.<br />
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