Just a beginner

Leaving the house when a pan of rotini, sausage, spinach and fresh mozzarella is baking in the oven and the boys are jovially talking around the table while eating is not the ideal time to leave. Being dark and mid-January doesn't help. My motivation had begun waning about noon, and it was nearly 6 hours since then. It would be easy to justify: I went last week, didn't I? I could always run in the morning. I have that book due tomorrow and over 100 pages to finish. But Ryan said he'd wait for me to eat (even out pasta-addicted son will not eat such a busy dish) and that I'd have fun. Enough said. I got dressed to ski -- a 5K this week.

When I arrived there were people putting on numbers and warming up outside. I put mine on and did the same, with a headlamp that put a blue haze on the snow and wasn't real helpful. When I returned to the start everyone was gathering around the line and before I knew it, we were off. I was the only one with a headlamp and water bottle. I guess this is all part of being a beginner. Being one of the very few classic skiers out there, I quickly slipped to the back and was passed by another classic skier. But I found my rhythm and felt my heart rate increase. Another woman passed me about a mile into it, and a second as we crested the first (and I thought the last) long hill. There would be time to catch up on the gently sloping ridge line (that is being generous, this is Madison after all, not the Rockies).

What I didn't realize was that the race course turns onto a trail I had never skied. It reminded me of Umstead park near Durham, NC where I once took my willing parents on a hike on a warm, though rainy, day in November. The last leg of the trail was a long ascent that curled around so that when I said, "It's just around the corner," it wasn't a complete lie. I had no idea where the top was on this hill, but I saw people coming down the other side through the grove of trees that separated the trail.

When I finally reached the top it hadn't occurred to me that given the length and incline of what I just went up, the descent could be fast -- really fast. The warm days make the evening snow shiny and slick. And I am no longer skiing on my mom's fiberglass skis from 1978. Focus on where you want to be, I thought at the same time trying not to think, those light poles are awfully close to the track! I knew there was a sharp curve where I first veered onto the new (to me) trail. I had huffed to some bystanders, "The course goes down the hill here, right?" To which they responded, "Oh no, first you go that way -- UP the hill!"

The curve at the bottom could not be taken at this ridiculous speed. What am I doing going this fast? I reached out my right leg and curled it into the snow enough to get me around the corner, but as soon as I had leveled back, another corner came up. I switched legs and felt wobbly. But I had no other choice. To fall here would be not great. There was another classic skier behind me, too, so it could be the pile up of those left behind. Maybe the 10K racers, as they lapped us, would stop to scoop us up? I chose to feel whatever strength was left in my legs and trust that years of pt and the fear of a skier pile-up would be enough. And it was. I rounded the corner, saw the same bystanders who gave me an encouraging cheer (do they feel toward classic skiers the way triathletes feel when they see someone on a mountain bike? Glad they are out there, so sorry they are working so hard?) and from here I knew the course. I came in with one of the 10Kers in 28:54. Yes, lapped. This is the best thing for me since swimming an open water mile and being passed, easily, by 10 year olds. The rotini was delicious, too.