Flying to the Birkie from afar? If so, there is a major fare sale for flights in to MSP. Sun Country has posted fares under $200 from most cities round-trip, and Delta has matched most of these. These are non-stop flights right to MSP. This is a great deal, guys.

I’m seeing $178 from Boston and DC, $198 from NY and Seattle and $218 from San Fran. If you are booking air travel and have not yet done so, do it today.

You can thank me later.

The dog days of August are upon us. With the Birkie early next year—February 22nd—it means that we’re almost at the halfway point to start counting down to the next Birkebeiner rather than up from the most recent one. I was going to have a Halfway to Birkie party with local skiers to drink beer and tell lies but then was offered a position as hutmaster at Lakes of the Clouds Hut, on the high alpine reaches of Mount Washington. So instead, I’ll be getting paid to go hiking for a month. That’s not a bad thing.

Next year, I won’t be working 5000 feet on the side of a mountain, so we’ll hammer this out (also, it turns out that I’ve been trying to schedule a call with the new Birkie director for about two weeks and it keeps falling through). So stay tuned for that!

Anyway, I’ll be getting back to more Birkieguide soon. I hope everyone’s training is going dandy. I’ve managed to rollerski twice in the last week, totaling more than 60k. This is good! Slightly higher in the Elite Wave, here I come.

It’s coming. I’m having some issues/fun with getting everything uploaded without crashing the server. It’s not the tippity top of my priorities by now, but I’m hoping for some time in May. If I’m lucky, hopefully before the last snow melts out of the Midwest (and, jeezum, before the Larium Glacier melts out up in the Keweenaw).

We have been able to wrangle the data and now have a one-minute long time lapse of the Birkie. It’s posted on Youtube. We might tweak it as we finish posting the data and fully launch the 2013 stats site, but I can’t not post this now, right?

An obscure Simpsons quote notwithstanding, it’s time for me to brush up on Unix time. Why? Because I have a dataset with close to 20,000 rows of Birkie data, and the split times are in Unix time. It’s exact, yes, but kind of kooky to sort in to real-life time.

In any case, look for data updates in coming days. Data!

Updates: we’re getting some really fun data for the number of people each skier passed and was passed by, split data, and the like. Stay tuned!

Our first guest race report is posted! Nick Dickey writes about losing weight, quitting smoking and skiing from the last wave of the Classic race. Thanks, Nick!

If you follow me on Twitter (and you should, really) you’ll see that I posted a bunch of pictures of a blizzard in Boston. Oh, and a Youtube video. We’re up to 21″ and it’s still snowing. I mentioned this a) because it’s awesome and b) because it looks like this wintry pattern could continue for some time.

Hayward won’t see two feet, but they will see a few inches in the next few days. The models aren’t particularly bullish on snow for Hayward, but the NWS is discussing the possibility of half a foot, starting as some mix but ending as colder, powderier snow. And then … it gets cold with the chance for storms. This is a very favorable weather pattern for the whole country, Northern Wisconsin definitely included. In the last dozen-or-so runs of the GFS, not-a-one has shown any kind of warm up or melt. Many have shown a foot of snow between now and race day. The only concern is that it might be quite cold for the race, but we’re okay with that. Unless there is a drastic change, snow should not be a problem.

Since this site began speculating about weather, this is the best year we’ve seen. Last year—during the winter that wasn’t (it was simply a silly fall that needed a shave and wore a fur coat, kudos if you got that oblique reference)—there wasn’t snow south of Hayward. The year before—despite the winter that most assuredly was—a meltdown the week before the race left the trail with grass poking through in a couple places. This year, despite inauspicious beginnings (that, amongst other things, canceled the Birkie Tour) the trail is well covered, it’s looking to stay cold, and more snow is in the offing.

With that said, we’ll post weather speculation every day or two until we’re within a week and can begin pinpointing the actual weather with a suite of models. Ski fast. Ski the road! (The governor of Massachusetts shut down the roadways, and the transit is closed. There’s not much choice.)

What are you doing on Sunday morning? Waking up in your bed after you drive back to the Cities? Waking up in a motel room after you sleep off the race? Waking up in someone else’s bed after you have a few too many Spotted Cows at the Sawmill (this should be your goal, right?).

What you should be doing is planning to come to the first-ever post-Birkie ski orienteering event at the North End Trailhead! What is ski orienteering? You put on skis, you get a map of trails, and you go looking for “controls” hanging in the woods based on the map. Basically, it’s an excuse to take a ski on the Birkie Trail and nearby. This is totally last minute and will be very informal, but you’ll get to ski around with folks getting ready to head off to the World Ski-O Championships in Kazakhstan (seriously) which is pretty awesome. One of whom just won the City of Lakes Loppet. No experience necessary. Just grab a map and go skiing.

(This is actually so low-key that we’re not going to have real controls or timing or anything since it’s too late to plan something “real.” But still, come. Details to follow.)