Birkebeinerrennet, live.

Rena to Lillehammer, carrying the prince

Norway’s most revered ski race is run with a mandatory pack on the back, and everybody there knows exactly why.

Birkebeinerrennet goes from Rena over Raudfjellet and Midtfjellet to the Birkebeineren ski stadium in Lillehammer — 53 kilometres of classic technique across two mountains, most of it above the tree line and exposed to whatever the March weather in Innlandet decides to do. Every skier carries a pack weighing at least 3.5 kilos, the weight of the infant prince Håkon Håkonsson whom two Birkebeiner warriors carried over these mountains in 1206.

It is a Ski Classics Pro Tour race and a national institution at the same time: the elite fields at the front, and behind them thousands of Norwegians who have done it every year for decades. Livebib puts the route on the map with the skier on it, distance covered and an arrival estimate for the stadium in Lillehammer that keeps updating — because on an exposed mountain crossing the difference between a good day and a bad one is measured in hours.