For the past 20 years, on the first Saturday morning of February, I’ve been in Mancelona, Michigan, to compete in what has become my favorite Nordic ski race period, the White Pine Stampede. I, along with as many as 1000 others, have lined up behind Mancelona High School and pointed our skis toward Bellaire (Shanty Creek) for the 50 km journey. The Stampede is synonymous with racing in Michigan, having become that much a part of our Nordic skiing tradition. It was therefore with mixed feelings that I signed up to do the Tartu Marathon in Estonia this year, scheduled for the same weekend of February, and thus excluding myself from the Stampede.

These past 20 years have seen an array of conditions. There were fast races (some bordering on treacherous), shortened races, slow races and painful races. A couple of the more painful ones saw snowfall during the entire race, which made for near zero visibility (the 1988 race saw about 7” fall through the event). Personally, my results have been just as varied as the conditions. I had good races (1987 my highest finish ever, 37th place), OK races and bad races (1984 turned into a 6 hour tour). The most memorable race, however, may well have been the 1996 edition.

In 1996, my wife Kim and I stayed in Grayling the night before the race. I vaguely remember waking up a couple of times in the middle of the night and feeling cold. I hoped I wasn’t getting sick but almost immediately fell back to sleep. The next thing I remember the owner of the hotel was knocking on our door to wake us up. The power had gone out in the middle of the night killing our and everybody else’s alarm. As we scrambled to get ready, we didn’t realize it, but evidently the power had been Frozen Out! This was the only time I’ve ever heard of this.

I have been a winter sports enthusiast my entire life and thought I had seen it all (weather wise) but when I walked out to start my car that morning, things, shall we say, felt a bit different. It was extremely, extremely cold! The car barely started, and once it did, the heater refused to warm up. On our way to the race, we also saw something strange. Standing right in the middle of M 72 was a flock of wild turkeys. This in itself wasn’t all that strange but what was strange is that they refused to move. I stopped the car only a few feet away from them, but they just stood there and looked at us. It was almost as if they were saying, “Go ahead and run us over, it can’t feel much worse.”

When we arrived at Mancelona High School, we were informed that the race would be delayed at least an hour. It was about -30 degrees Fahrenheit (the coldest temp I’ve ever experienced in Michigan) and the race officials hoped it would warm up to a balmy - 10 before starting the race. It never did and the race finally started with the temp at about - 15. Thank God there was no wind!

As the racers skated around the start area trying to warm up, it was definitely slow-going. I remember Doug Cornel skiing up to me and saying, “There’ve been a lot of times when I’ve had really bad glide but this is the first time I’ve ever had absolutely no glide.”

The race for me quickly turned into a survival feat. The effort it took to ski just a few feet was incredible. At some point in the race, I was double polling in the track and for some reason kicked, probably by accident. I found that I had all the grip of a pair of well-waxed classic skis even though my skate skis were obviously only waxed for glide, another first. I ended up classic skiing almost half the race. Jackie Rubio, a very good friend of mine (this proved it) waited along side the course for well over an hour to cheer me on. When I finally passed, she didn’t even recognize me because every square inch of my body was covered. I didn’t see her because I was too busy laughing and joking with the aide station volunteers (bless their souls) so that they didn’t try to pull me off the course. Over half the field either didn’t start the race or were pulled off the course for exhaustion or frostbite and hypothermia concerns. Only 81 racers finished the marathon.

I finished the race with a time of about 4:40 on a course that I was routinely skiing in about 2:50. The temperature was still well below zero. When I went inside, my wife was truly relieved to see me but many others stood around shivering and looking very worried as they waited for friends and relatives. They had been hearing how tough it was and that many skiers were being pulled off the course. As I changed out of my ski clothes, the strangest thing happened. For the first time that day, I got cold. It was so cold outside that the heat at Shanty Creek couldn’t keep up and the building was actually frigid.

Within this race and this story lies a secret that Nordic Skiers have learned that is really the true essence of Nordic Skiing. On a day when 99.9% of people probably didn’t move more then 3 or 4 feet away from a heater, I spent over 5 hours outside, enjoying the incredible winter landscape of Northern Michigan. Aside from the extra effort that the slow conditions caused, I was very comfortable. I didn’t get cold until the race was over and I was inside. On a day when most people fled from their environment, we not only conquered it, we became part of it.

See you next year when I do the first of what will hopefully be 20 more White Pine Stampedes.

Happy Skiing