Birkebeinerrennet training plan for 20 March 2027

The Birkebeinerrennet runs for the 87th time on Saturday 20 March 2027, twenty weeks after the first Monday of November. That is enough to finish comfortably, move up a wave or chase the medal time, as long as each week has a job.

What the 2027 race asks of you

Check the current rules before you plan. The pack rule in particular differs from what many older plans assume.

• Distance and style: 53 km in classic technique, from Tingstadjordet about 3 km west of Rena to Birkebeineren ski stadium in Lillehammer, 490 metres above sea level.
• Profile: the course climbs from forest terrain at the start up toward three mountain areas, then leads down to Lillehammer. The 2026 course measured 52.9 km with 1121 m of climbing and 933 m of descent.
• Backpack: every skier carries a pack of at least 2 kg on the back for the whole race, with windproof jacket and long trousers, dry warm underwear, a hat, a buff and gloves. Many older plans still say 3.5 kg. Organisers run random checks, and the pack must make weight at the finish.
• Cut-offs: Skramstadsetra by 12.15, Kvarstad by 15.30, Sjusjøen by 17.30, the finish by 19.00.
• Food and drink: Skramstadsetra at 9 km, Dambua at 15, Kvarstad at 28, Midtfjellet at 35, Sjusjøen at 40 and the finish.
• The medal: the Birkebeiner medal time is the average of the five fastest in your class plus 25 percent.
• Seeding: waves come from your results in the Birkebeinerrennet, HalvBirken, TurBirken and SkøyteBirken from 2023 to 2026, plus approved seeding races in 2026 and 2027. The preliminary table appears in November 2026 and the final one 1 to 2 weeks before the race.

Four phases from November to race day

1. Base, 2 November to 20 December. Easy volume on rollerskis, on foot with poles and on the first snow. Technique work on diagonal stride and double poling. One strength session a week.
2. Build, 21 December to 31 January. Add threshold work and the first uphill intervals. Long sessions get longer and start including the pack.
3. Race-specific, 1 February to 7 March. Long classic sessions on hilly terrain with the full pack, race-pace blocks, feeding practice and one seeding race if you want a better wave.
4. Taper, 8 March to 20 March. Less volume, same intensity, rested legs.

Weekly structure by goal

The hours below are typical ranges from coaching practice. Fit them to your history.

First-timer, aiming to finish

• Ski 4 to 6 hours a week over 4 sessions.
• Make one session long and easy every week.
• Keep two sessions of 45 to 75 minutes easy, with drills for kick and balance.
• From the build phase, run one session of short uphill intervals, for example 8 x 1 minute in diagonal stride on a moderate climb.
• Add 20 minutes of core and leg strength twice a week.

Mid-pack, aiming for a better wave or the medal

• Ski 6 to 9 hours a week over 5 or 6 sessions.
• Keep the weekly long session and two easy sessions.
• Run one threshold session, for example 4 x 8 minutes at a pace you could hold for an hour.
• Run one hill session, for example 6 x 3 minutes diagonal stride on the same climb.
• Spend 30 minutes of an easy day double poling only, on flat and gentle terrain.

Competitive wave, racing for time

• Ski 9 to 14 hours a week over 6 to 8 sessions, with some doubles.
• Run two quality sessions a week: one threshold, one high intensity on climbs.
• Do one double-poling session with long intervals, for example 3 x 12 minutes.
• Keep everything else genuinely easy.

Long-session progression

The long session is the backbone of a Birken plan. Grow it by about 15 to 30 minutes every other week and pull back every fourth week.

• First-timer: 1 h 45 in November, 2 h 30 by mid-December, 3 h 30 by late January, then two sessions of 4 to 4 h 30 in February on hilly terrain with the full race pack.
• Mid-pack: 2 h 30 in November, 3 h 30 by New Year, then 4 h 30 to 5 h sessions in February, with the last third at race effort.
• Competitive: 3 h in November and 4 h by January, then 3 to 4 h race simulations in February with 2 x 30 minutes at race pace on climbs.
• Last long session: two and a half to three weeks before the race, around 28 February.

Train the climbs with the pack on

The Birken climbs first and descends last, and you carry weight the whole way. That changes how you train.

• Pack everything early. Pack the mandatory clothing, weigh the bag and ski with it from the build phase. Straps that chafe at 3 hours will hurt at 5.
• Train the stride you will use. In a study of an elite classic distance race, every skier double poled on the flat and all but the male winner used diagonal stride on the uphill sections. On a course with 1121 m of climbing, your diagonal stride on long, steady climbs decides a large part of your time.
• Repeat the same climb. Pick a climb of 3 to 6 minutes and do it as repeats every week or two. If your times on rep 6 match rep 1, your pacing is right.

How hard the hard days are

Most of the plan is easy, and that is deliberate.

• Seiler and Kjerland found junior cross-country skiers did about 75 percent of their endurance sessions at low intensity, 8 percent around threshold and 17 percent above it, measured by heart rate.
• Tønnessen and colleagues followed Olympic and world champions in cross-country skiing and biathlon: 91 percent of endurance training time was low intensity, though 23 percent of sessions included high intensity work.
• For a recreational plan: two hard sessions a week at most, easy days slow enough to talk.

Seeding: race to move up a wave

A better wave means less queuing on the first climbs. If your wave is too far back, use an approved seeding race in January or February as a race-specific session. Send results in well before the deadline published on birken.no; the organisers do not reseed on race weekend.

Taper

• A meta-analysis by Bosquet and colleagues found the best results from a 2-week taper that cut volume by 41 to 60 percent while keeping intensity and frequency unchanged.
• The champions in the Tønnessen study barely reduced volume, and 10 of 11 did a high intensity session within 48 hours of their best race.
• In practice: from 8 March, halve your long session and drop one easy session. Keep short race-pace efforts. On Thursday 18 March, ski 30 to 40 minutes with 4 x 1 minute fast.

Pacing and feeding on race day

• Start below your pace. The race climbs from the forest toward the mountains first. Ski the early climbs at an effort you could hold for 5 hours, even when the wave around you goes faster.
• Know your cut-offs. If you start in a late wave, compare its start time with 12.15 at Skramstadsetra and 15.30 at Kvarstad before race day.
• Eat early and regularly. Jeukendrup describes up to about 60 g of carbohydrate per hour from one source and around 90 g for very long events with mixed carbohydrate sources, with lower amounts at lower intensity. Practise your amount in every long session from January.
• Use the stations and the pack. Drink at every station and carry one or two gels in the pack.
• Save something for the end. The last part descends to Lillehammer, and a skier with stable legs gains time on every downhill and every flat stretch.

If the same climb is slower one week than the last, read how snow conditions change your times before you blame your fitness.

When you repeat one climb all winter, Skibuddy times every lap and every climb rep and sets each rep against your best and your average, so you see whether the climbing is coming along.