I’ve lived in the Upper Peninsula for nearly eight years now, but I’ve yet to tackle the Noquemanon Ski Marathon.
I bought a budget package of cross country ski gear a few years ago and I’ve managed to get out a few times on the trails every winter, but never quite caught the fever.
And also, inexplicably, never managed to accelerate much beyond four miles per hour.
I thought I’d give it a try again this winter, even with the preparation time for the race rapidly dwindling. The marathon is next week.
Maybe, I thought, this time I’d get into the Zen of cross country, I’d become one with the skis, and the skis would become one with the trails and…Well, maybe this time I’d go faster and I wouldn’t fall over.
My companion, a female equally inexperienced at the sport, and I unloaded our gear in the snow-covered parking lot, donned our hat and gloves, laid down our skis, and snapped our ski boots into the skis.
Well, she did, anyway. Snap. Snap.
Me? I set the toe of my boot down on the ski, and pushed. And pushed again. And again. Nothing.
“I think you’re supposed to push down on that white thing,” she suggested.
“I did!” I snapped angrily. “The damn thing’s not working!”
Clearly there was a serious problem with my skis which would require some repairs because….Oh. There. I pushed down on the white thing, and the boot snapped into place. The second one did likewise. Piece of cake.
So, standing tall and proud and athletic, I was ready to attack the trail.
A little clarification here: I’ve never tried skate-skiing because…I don’t like falling down. Instead, I’m a “classic” cross country skiier. I like that word, “classic”. It sounds so much better than “easy” or “non-athletic” or “for old folks”.
We cautiously sidestepped into the two tracks, and we were off. Two and a half miles of trail lay ahead, waiting to be conquered.
After 100 yards, my companion was 15 yards ahead. After 200, the margin was 25 yards. What the hell? My legs were longer and my body was stronger but, for some reason, I lagged behind.
Maybe it was because I dragged my poles on any slope with a downhill grade higher than 2 percent, or maybe it was because I took little, mincing steps on even the slightest of curves in the tracks.
Or maybe it was because I was tense and didn’t quite trust my body to do the right thing. As I say, I’m not fond of falling down. Falling on a cross country track for me is certainly not the same as a “garage sale” crash in downhill skiing, but I’d liken it to a “sidewalk sale”–a few items scattered here, a few items there. Pick them up, get over the embarrassment, and you can be on your way.
And I recalled that last winter, my last few runs had been accident-free, and I had actually started to get into the rhythm of the sport–push with the pole and sliiiiide…push and sliiiiiide…
After a mile or so, with my companion still barely in sight, I was again feeling it. I was efficient, I was a machine, I had to be zipping along at maybe five or six miles an hour until, of course, I came to a hill when I would necessarily grit my teeth, stiffen my body, drag my poles deep in the snow, and pray.
There was no oneness with Nature on this day, just a gritty and satisfying determination to keep my legs under me and stay upright.
The one challenge on the course lay near the end; it’s about 40 yards of downhill where a thrill-seeker (someone who doesn’t drag his poles) might achieve 15 miles per hour, tops. I’d fallen on it in past winters and had developed an unreasonable anxiety about it, to a point where I was obsessing about it 10 minutes before I came to it.
It was all in my mind, of course. I had nothing to fear but fear itself.
And there I was, looking down on it, Mt. Everest but it honestly didn’t look that bad. It wasn’t! This whole fear thing was silly! My God, I’m an adult, I’m reasonably coordinated, I’m supposed to be having fun!
So do it already.
I edged up cautiously to the very top and noticed a few crusts of extra snow lying in one of the tracks. No problem. Just slide right through it and….
“Jzzx!mnt?!!”
And there I lay with my “sidewalk sale” on full display, my legs twisted, one ski sticking up in the air, my knit hat flying off, my face chin-deep in snow.
So no, I never achieved Zen, never really relaxed so I could enjoy the serenity on the trail, and never exceeded six miles an hour.
But I did, however, manage to efficiently detach my skis from my boots in the parking lot. Snap, snap. You shoulda seen it. I was slick.