Under the Microscope

Written by Luke Brown

(Photo Credit Igor Stančík)

“I have created nothing new, I have only found what those before me found themselves but failed to share.” 

It always starts the night before. The stress of travel days that is. As Raleigh and I pull into the big white tent at Copley to get our pre-European-travel COVID tests, we get the email. Flight canceled. After receiving the mandatory swab up the nose, we sit in the parking lot where we have phone service and plan our next move. On the phone with United and there are no open flights out of Burlington the next day. Manchester? Montreal? Boston? Finally, a Lufthansa flight out of Boston in the morning. But now we’re connecting through Germany to get to Vienna. What are the entry requirements for Germany? So we’re still on our phones sifting through the German State Department’s website of which I must over the last two years be classified as a frequent visitor. So maybe we need another COVID test in the morning to get on this new flight and maybe we don’t and where could we get a rapid PCR test. This type of uncertainty has been one of the consistent storylines of traveling throughout Europe in the last year - maybe there’s a checkpoint at the border with strict guards, maybe they wave you through, maybe you need your test results to board the plane and maybe you only need them when you land. Maybe that translated sentence on the website means you need an extra COVID test and pre-registration and well, maybe it doesn’t. In this case we ended up deciding that our vaccines were enough to transit through the Frankfurt airport. But at some point during our hour in the dark parking lot we definitely call our mom’s. The next morning and we’re on the plane out of Boston, bound for Vienna.

You don’t need energy in your legs to ski. That’s what I’m telling myself before the first race in Osrblie, Slovakia. The two hours of sleep on the plane, three hours of waiting for our ride at the airport, and the four hour drive from Vienna to the venue had seemingly taken the juice from my lower appendages. I try believing that it’s all in the hips, that energy is neither created nor destroyed. But at the end of the day, I confess that it’s really really difficult to ski fast without oomph in the legs. 

The outhouse has tipped over. A volunteer rushes to show off his deadlifting strength and another one rushes to help. Raleigh and I are stopped in our tracks, not by the sight of two fifty year old men attempting and failing to lift with their legs and not with their backs, but by a severe gust of wind. The women’s race is over and we walk from Hotel Zarrennpach to the wax cabin as the women walk from the wax cabin to the Hotel Zarrenpach. If you looked at us from the sky we’d be like all those little living organisms under a microscope just darting around in the water sample you took from the lake in sixth grade science class that your teacher projects onto the whiteboard. But back to the wind. This wind would have knocked that projector over. But actually back to the wind. It’s sending parts of trees onto the trial and launches a V-board into the air and into a volunteer. Race delayed. Race canceled. You’d think that would be the end of the show, but no. Because now you have a bunch of dudes that were ready to race and want to race and now the Germans are ripping around the debris-filled trails in their race suits doing intervals. Because going hard was on the plan of course. And the Russians are doing speeds but mainly only when the Germans pass them. And the Czechs are all together plodding along and chatting and then everyone else is going L2. Like are they doing intervals or are they not? Lots of energy. Lots of wind. And the wind was both created and destroying. Destroying anyone’s chances of peeing peacefully in an outhouse after a race that happened.

Trampolines tipped up against the barn. That’s really all I’ve got for this one. Trampolines seem to be a big thing here - from Slovakia to Germany to Czech to Austria. And it’s winter so they’re tipped up against the wall of a barn or the house so snow doesn’t just pile up on them. Lots of trampolines. 

I’ve side stepped on skis up a snow mound to get a look at the big screen with the results. I’m on the warm up loop after the sprint at Open European Champs in Arber in Germany. The warm up loop can also be used for cooling down. I was bib three so lots of people are still to finish. I’m sitting in like 43rd and then 47th and then… can I hang onto the top 60? It’s a big ask. I missed four. Two in prone which is more than usual and two in standing which is what I’ve been up to recently. But skiing myself into the pursuit with four misses is a lot. I skied well. Better than last week. Better than two days ago in the individual. I went hard, hard, the last lap. This course is really hard. I realize I care too much about this result. Why am I up here craning my neck to see? I side step on skis down the snow mound and continue the cool down. I think. I shouldn’t care so much what that big board says. I should care more about how my race went - how I executed my goals - than how I compared to other people. But I really want it. And I wanted it before the race and I knew I wanted it too badly. I knew I cared about the result too much. I side step on skis back up the snow mound to get another look. Still caring too much. I’m in 57th. Back down I go and I know I’ll probably get bumped out and I wonder why I wasn’t able to reign in my desire for an outcome and replace it with a process perspective. I tried. I’ll learn and do better next time. That’s the name of the game. 

I’m in Nove Mesto and I’m oscillating between bull and ballerina. They each have their strengths: the ballerina is light on the feet, balanced in movement, graceful in motion, an artful storyteller, and pretty. The bull is strong in muscle, firm in conviction, forceful in contact, singular in purpose, and powerful. So which one do I want to embody when I ski? That’s the question. The answer? Both. A dancing bull. But it’s not so simple in how I’ve arrived at this conclusion. You see, people have often told me I look good when I ski. Or that I am a pretty skier. Great! Thank you. But how do I get better? It doesn’t matter who’s the prettiest skier, it matters who’s the fastest. How do I close the gap between my skiing and world cup level skiing? Do I try to just look better or be prettier, or do I get stronger and ski with more power? It was a technique suggestion about extending more fully through the leg while keeping the upper body forward, not up, as I finish the push that commenced this question. I realized that keeping the push short, finishing it with the foot in the air, and coming up a little bit with the chest like I was doing looks kinda good. It looks lighter, it looks graceful, it looks ballerina-esque. So then I want more bull. But then I’m more like bull and I’m fully extending through the push but then I’m muscling my arms and the tempo slows and where’s the energy-conserving pendulum and I’m stepping forward without my weight over my ski. So then I want more ballerina. And the circle of life continues until balance is found not in either but in both. And thus, the theory of skiing as a yin yang modern conceptualization of the bull ballerina duality is found.