On Ski Team

My brother took up cross country skiing in the ninth grade. He had run cross country in the fall and many of his teammates were also skiers. Though he had never skied before, cross country or downhill, he decided to give it a try.

Like running cross country, he loved it. He loved the competition and the force of will. And I think he loved the novelty of it. Skiing was new to us. Our parents didn't ski, our friends in the neighborhood didn't ski. We had only recently learned to ice skate. That is, really learned. Not renting skates at the local rink, but buying them and skating at the neighbor's backyard rink. 

Admittedly I have questions about this story, but I have no one to ask, so we continue.

A year later as fall began to turn to winter, I bought a pair of skate skis at the school's ski swap. They were Rossignols and cost me $30. I’d borrow the rest of the equipment from the school's grab bag of crap. 

Nick and I circled the snow-covered back yard soon after, my first time on snow. We were so excited, a new adventure to begin. 

My first race was at Mount Hor. That's up by Lake Willoughby. It was a 6k course that climbed for about 4k and returned down the mountain the final 2k. It was so effing cold that day.

Have you ever seen a cross country ski uniform? It's basically nylon/spandex from neck to ankle. They are made to accompany high-level exertion. Ski racers don't hang out in their tights, they strip off jackets and pants minutes before race time like a basketball player waiting to check into the game. 

At Mount Hor, that final 2k turns a warm, sweaty body into a painfully cold one. It was only later that I learned of that time-honored remedy: duct taping one's underwear. A tape wind-screen might've been just the remedy on that day. As it happened, immediately after crossing the finish line I followed a teammate's lead, pulled my sweaty hands out of my gloves and immediately stuck them down my pants to reinvigorate my retreating little friend. 

I finished near the end of the pack, that is, almost last. I survived, and soon made my way back to the running bus. 

Over the next few years Nick and I went through a lot together. Early season dry-land training meant running and roller skiing. On the paved cart path at the new golf course, still very much under construction. Down on Community Drive off Kimball. And up Mount Philo. Annual multi-day trips to Lake Placid. Even the Stowe Derby. And of course all of the other daily happenings: taking the van to Catamount, The Range (you're damn right I just capitalized it), Sleepy Hollow, and Bolton Valley. 

We used to roller ski up Mount Philo. If you don't know what roller skis are, well first off you are normal, they are kind of like a longer, heavier, far less agile version of a rollerblade. They have regular ski bindings and hook into regular ski boots and are accompanied by regular ski poles, sometimes with different tips designed to better grip pavement.

The team would "ski" up the paved, car-intended road to the top and walk back down. We would carry our shoes in a backpack, and I guess carry our skis, boots, and poles on the way down. You might think that we could have driven the van up to better facilitate the whole thing, but I think being November/December the park may have been closed or may have closed for the day before we were finished. I think sometimes we had the van.

One time I decided to ski down. Roller skis, (at least the ones we used) have a set brake on each wheel. It's basically a small metal roller that makes contact with the wheel to provide resistance. The danger is that once you are moving, unless you can stop, you can't add or subtract stopping power. 

That feature can make it a bit difficult to descend a "mountain". It's not really a mountain, but rather than getting into that I will merely say that despite a couple of pretty hairy descents and ducking under the entrance gate at speed, I escaped without damage.

We went to Lake Placid for a few days every year during winter break. Most of the team managed to attend; we stayed in a bunkhouse near the Olympic ski trails at Mount Van Hoevenberg. I don't remember what we ate, just the big kitchen where we picked up the chow.

Those trips were always a lot of fun. The coaches treated us like adults, during the training sessions at the mountain, in our free time in the evening, and in the bunkhouse at night. We were given directions like, "Breakfast is at 7," instead of enforcing a bedtime, or, "We'll meet back here at noon for lunch," and letting us explore the mountain on our own. Our coach was a "players' coach", he trusted us and everybody loved him. 

One year the mountain didn't have snow and we drove around looking for some. We found a golf course that was somehow covered (or partially covered) in snow and we were saved. While it wasn't an Olympic network of trails adjacent to the bobsled run, it actually worked out okay, and I think for most of us it was about the trip more than just the skiing. 

The ski team was coed, and while roommates were assigned, the bunkhouse was coed. Fortunately I think most of the parents trusted their sons and daughters and didn't ask too many questions. I don't want to get into it, but there were late night movies in the common room and more than a little room visiting. If I'm not mistaken, a couple of marriages resulted from those trips.

I'm still not quite sure how each day we found the time after school to gather in the locker rooms, drive some place like Bolton Valley (we skied there a lot), and have enough daylight to do much of anything. School let out at 2:43 and sunset is before 4:30 for all of December and before 5 in January. We must've had an hour or so to ski. I guess that's all it really takes. 

Allow me to continue to ramble: I was never a particularly great skier. A few years later when I got more into downhill skiing I thought, This is more my speed. And also, This is so easy. Which it is, but I'll leave that for my future essay: "Why downhill skiing is so easy, and snowboarding is stupid". 

There are a lot of factors beyond the obvious like training and technique that go into running (skiing) your best race. Knowing the course, where to push and where to lay back; knowing yourself and what you can handle; hydrating, eating, getting enough sleep the night before. Level-headed confidence. Have a plan and execute it.

Had most of my races been submitted for grading, I would've received failing marks across the board. I showed up and skied the course. I'm not sure I considered anything more.

I won't get into too much individual race stuff, but I'll mention one memory. We were at Bolton Valley, I think it was states. For those who have been there, the cross country trails and complex are across the parking lot from the lifts. I don't remember anything about the results, who won, how the team fared, or much else. I remember strutting around the inside of the complex, mostly a big multipurpose gym, with my headphones on, Sony Discman at full volume in the pocket of my wind pants. What a jerk.

State Championships 1999