The 3 Stages
After a week of sickness in Vermont, I heard that my team had gone skiing for the first time of the season without me. The next day I was miraculously all better and we skied up there every day for the next 5 days. Early to mid-November skiing is apparently a treat for the East so I was pretty psyched to be able to take advantage of it before it melted.
Ski trail at the notch near Stowe, VT
I went through all three stages of the first ski pretty quickly:
Stage 1: Initial elation. This is jumping out of the van and seeing a skiable trail for the first time in months, clipping into your skis and powering through the first few minutes of the ski.
Stage 2: Creeping disappointment. This is when your ears, toes, and fingertips start to freeze from the wintery temps and you are breathing much heavier than you expected. All summer you’ve felt a little awkward on rollerskis but you smugly reminded yourself that it all comes together on real skis. But here you are in your element feeling so awkward with your extremities numbing and core overheating and your hips that you’ve worked so hard to get forward are right back where they started. ‘I remembered this being way more fun,’ you think. In severe cases this can even lead to rethinking your big decision to ski for a living. This stage can last up to an hour.
Stage 3: Ultimate nirvana. You’ve shed an appropriate amount of layers and combined with the blood flow of exercise you’re finally maintaining a consistently comfortable body temperature. You are getting used to the longness of skis and finally find that rhythm. Your body has adapted already and you get a giddy feeling usually followed by borderline delusional thoughts of the possibilities this race season has in store. The second-guessing, the doubts, the questions you asked yourself about your current life path on all those sweaty scorching rollerski sessions are all put to rest a hundred times over. Your Olympic dream, after steadily dimming in fits and starts over the summer and fall is all at once rekindled.
Ski trail at Craftsbury, VT
A week before traveling westward we were back to rollerskiing and running in the mud. But the staff at the COC have been hard at work making snow so we were able to enjoy a 600 meter loop/lollipop the last day in the East.
All stocked up for the week
At last, we are in West Yellowstone for our first week of races.
Perfect ski conditions in West Yellowstone
It is easy to start each workout in Stage 3 now with absolutely perfect ski conditions here. Hundreds of skiers are in paradise with the biggest concern being to not get too excited and train too much before the races this weekend.
We are staying in a house in West Yellowstone, nearly within sight of the trailhead. We almost have a home court advantage with the Craftsbury sprinter and wax trailer here with us thanks to our assistant coach Nick making the long drive. With the big races only 2 days away we are all trying to stay calm and collected despite everyone wondering to themselves ‘How fast am I?”