This is the first time I did the CLASSIC american birkebeiner. Approximately 53 km and very nice course all by itself before double low. It was cold, but I remove some clothes at the last minute and glad I did because I still had too many clothes on. New kinetic gloves. Kinetic. I have a sin shirt that I took off right before hand, but I still had a zippered thick shirt beneath my blue coat. I almost remove the coat at double oh, but didn’t want to take the time to really move my poles and my bib. Michelle it was very helpful and took my bag and everything and she also met me at Double O with a new water bottle with energy drink in it. I stopped at most of the eight stations or rolled through and tried to get an energy drink and I also had a few goose. I also ate four of my own girls. I had tried to put some HALVA and protein nuggets and chocolates in my Pockets but they became pulverized lol. The chocolate was pretty intact but very dry. Eventually my first water bottle froze (I declined to try my camel box Camelback, or my CO x-ray because of those concerns) and the second water bottle I got was super slick and I needed like two hands in order to manipulate it lol. I really had a lot of fun a double pulling like a maniac across the lake and passing a lot of people and I also did the herringbone FAST up the international Bridge? (most of my herringbone was very laid-back throughout the day otherwise). Overall a good race and was very happy to get just under three hours coming in in about two hours 55 minutes and 30 seconds. Oh, I broke somebody’s poll rate for the race!. We stayed at a small renovated garage house one block from the finish and that was awesome to be able to walk there for a shower right after. It was very cold on the day of the barn Berkey and the little kids and everybody came over and hung out to stay warm for quite a while. OK tell people I’ve gone here about 15 times and stayed about 12 different places.