It is the Midwest’s premier cross country ski race. Skiers and spectators from all over the United States and the rest of the world venture to the towns of Cable and Hayward, for the American Birkiebeiner.

Among the 7,000 skiers at the start line was UW-Eau Claire senior Ryan Woehler, along with his father, John Woehler. Ryan Woehler said he has been cross-country skiing since early childhood.

Skiing has been a family event for the Woehlers ever since Ryan was young. The 2006 Birkiebeiner marks John Woehler’s 27th race and Ryan Woehler’s seventh, and the sport continues to be a bonding event for this father and son.

Woehler said he got into the sport when his parents took him skiing as a child. “I always remember, every weekend, skiing with my mom and dad,” he said.

Ryan Woehler started out skiing using the diagonal stride technique, which is similar to ski walking. His father introduced him to the skate skiing technique in an interesting way.

“My dad took my little skis and put a hot iron to the scales that were on them and said ‘you’re going to learn how to skate,’ ” he said.

At age seven, Woehler said he and his sister, along with their parents, joined the thousands of participants in Hayward for the Birkiebeiner. Woehler and his sister took part in the Barnebirkie – the junior race, usually one to three kilometers long, in which 1,000 children participate.

Later that Saturday, he and his sister watched his parents race in the 55 kilometers Birkiebeiner.

Besides traveling to Hayward, the Appleton native also participated in the Badger State Winter Games, held at Nine Mile State Forest in Wausau.

At age 18, when he was old enough to sign up, Woehler said he decided to take on the Birkiebeiner challenge after watching his parents compete in the race for so many years.

“Basically, it was my mom and dad who got me into the race,” he said. “I wanted to see it from the (racers) point of view.”

John Woehler, said that he and his son do the Birkiebeiner for the experience.
“We ski for fun; kind of make a party of it,” he said.

In the big race, Ryan Woehler, his father and 6,500 others endure a course of brutal uphills and sharp, curvy downhills.

The night before a Birkiebeiner, Ryan Woehler said, his nervouness starts to kick in. But when the time comes to put ski tips to the line, his nerves go away.

“You get up at five o’clock in the morning thinking about how brutal and agonizing the race will be,” he said, “but once you’re out on the course, you feel better.”

Racers start out in the open on an airstrip of the local airport. Skiers are sorted into waves of 10, which start in 10 minute intervals, based on their qualifying times
John Woehler said, both have started in the same wave and have tried to ski the course together. If they split up, he said, they would wait for each other at the half way point.

This year, Ryan Woehler started in the fourth wave and his father in the third.

“I didn’t get to see much of him,” his father said.

At the beginning of the Birkiebeiner course, ac-cording to the race’s Web site, there is about two kilometers of flat terrain until the first set of hills, known as the “Powerlines,” which are a steep climb.
Then the course winds around the Telemark system of trails with smaller rolling hills.

But once the skiers get to the 12 kilometers mark, they encounter the next hill, nicknamed “Firetower Hill.” This slope rises 1,730 feet, making it the highest point of the course.

After a few small hills, “Bobblehead Hill,” a sharp S-curve down hill, meets the competitors.

Next, the race crosses the highway, where the terrain is somewhat flat. But the hills are not yet over when at 40 kilometers, the titled “Bitch Hill” towers above the course.

Then the course winds down onto Lake Hayward, where skiers have just 10 kilometers to go. After four kilometers on the lake, the racers ski down Main Street of Hayward to the finish line.

Tons of snow are hauled and dumped onto Main Street to form the final stretch. Woehler said this is the toughest part of the course.

“It’s like skiing in mashed potatoes,” he said.

But the most rewarding part, Woehler said, occurs when he sees his friends and family cheering him on to the finish.

While it may take weeks or even months to train for the Birkie, Ryan Woehler said the college life limits his training time.

“I’ve only skied about 15 kilometers since before the race,” he said.

John Woehler said he thinks his son has become a great downhill skier and that he has the technical aspects of cross-country skiing down.

When Ryan Woehler sees a skier strap on a pair of roller skis to practice during the summer months, he said, he starts to think about the race in the first few months of winter.

It’s the sport of cross country skiing that bonds his family together, Woehler said.