3 Workouts You Should Be Doing to Have Your Best Birkie Yet by Zak Ketterson

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Hey there, everyone! Zak Ketterson here, checking in just a few weeks before the first World Cup races of the new season. It’s nearly that time of year when we all get to trade our running shoes and roller skis for the real deal. But even though winter is just around the corner, there are still several months to go until the American Birkebeiner. The training you do now and during the first few months of winter can have a huge impact on your performance at the Birkie, so I wanted to suggest a few sessions I think you should be doing if you want to have your best Birkie yet.

1. The Long Session (2–3+ Hours) - This session is, in my opinion, the backbone of any successful Birkie. Given that the Birkie is a 50K race that can take many racers upwards of three hours to complete, your endurance is going to be the main driver of performance. There’s no better way to build endurance than through good old-fashioned, consistent training volume. Adding a few hours of skiing per week between now and the Birkie is probably the single most impactful thing you can do. But beyond just accumulating training volume, you also want to make sure you're getting in individual sessions that push the limits of what your body is used to. This is where the long session comes into the picture. If your typical ski duration is 1–1.5 hours, then adding one ski per week that is closer to 2.5 or 3 hours can make a huge difference in your endurance. There are certain training adaptations that become more pronounced as the duration of a single workout increases. What I mean by that is, if you only ever ski for 90 minutes or less, you could be missing out on some of the additional benefits that come from longer sessions. In addition, since the Birkie takes at least a couple of hours to complete for most racers, it's important to include sessions that approach or exceed that duration. I recommend finding one day per week, maybe Saturday or Sunday, when you can get out and ski for a bit longer than you're used to. Fueling is key for these sessions, so make sure you have carb drink mix, gels, bars, etc. Aim for at least 60g of carbs per hour, and make sure you get a good meal in shortly after the session.
2. The Tempo/Threshold Workout - As important as easy training volume is, it isn't enough by itself. You also need to incorporate some harder workouts that get your heart rate up. This is where tempo/threshold intervals come into play. I think these provide an excellent balance between delivering a really good training stimulus and not being overly demanding from a recovery standpoint. They also target an intensity that is very similar to the demands of a 50K race effort. The goal with these sessions is to work at an output that feels "comfortably hard." A good starting point could be somewhere around 83–89% of your maximum heart rate. Aim for a total of 30–60 minutes of interval time, and feel free to break that up in whatever way works best for you. I commonly like to do 6–12 minute intervals with around 2 minutes of recovery (for example, 6 × 8 minutes with 2-minute breaks). But you could also do 2 × 20 minutes or 10 × 4 minutes. Longer intervals require a slower pace to prevent the intensity from creeping up too much, whereas shorter intervals allow you to go a bit faster because of the more frequent recovery periods. I recommend incorporating a good blend of both longer and shorter interval sessions. Again, make sure you are fueling diligently throughout these sessions. At a minimum, aim for 60g of carbs per hour, and try to work your way up toward 90–100g per hour. This is really important because the better you can train your body to absorb carbohydrates during these months, the better prepared you'll be to fuel yourself on race day. Being adapted to taking in higher amounts of carbohydrates can make a massive difference in your performance.
3. Specific Strength Training - This one is a lot simpler in practice than it sounds. It really just means training the specific building blocks of our techniques, primarily double poling and skating without poles. The main thing I want to suggest here, regardless of whether you're training for the classic or skate Birkie, is to incorporate double-pole-only sessions. These are exactly what they sound like: sessions where you only double pole, even on the uphills. Naturally, the difficulty of these sessions is greatly affected by how hilly the terrain is and how slow the snow is. The same concept applies to no-pole skating, although I don't necessarily recommend doing sessions that are 100% without poles. Instead, I would recommend doing a regular skate ski but adding in 15–30 minutes of dedicated skiing without poles. The reason these sessions are valuable is that they challenge individual muscle groups in ways that regular skating and classic skiing don't. By doing dedicated double-pole and no-pole skating sessions, we strengthen those muscles in a really specific way, and that strength translates directly back into our normal skiing. These sessions are also really effective for technique development. Double poling, in particular, is a basic building block of nearly every technique in skiing, especially V2 skating. Skating without poles also forces you to learn to use your legs correctly and exposes weaknesses in your balance that might otherwise be masked by using poles as a crutch. I would aim to incorporate some dedicated double-pole training and no-pole skating every single week. However, it is very important that you build up gradually to avoid overworking these muscles all at once.

I feel very confident recommending these sessions because they have made a huge difference in my own training. It's a really rewarding experience to work on specific things during the months leading up to a race and then feel on race day that your work really paid off. 
By using these sessions as a guide, I hope you can all experience that feeling come Birkie race day. Happy training!