The Extra Mile

I can feel the butterflies as I step through the first small downhills for my preview run of the World Master's Ski race in Sovereign Lake, Canada. Already the course is feeling familiar and I'm sure I'll be alone by this corner during the race. Past the start, where the top women will blast out to get ahead, and past the sound of the crowd constantly ringing cowbells, I will have started to settle into the event, a 15k course that should take me just over an hour. In some ways, it's the perfect course: easy at the start, rollers in the middle, then steep up and down climbs at the end. So while I will be more tired at the end, there will be no reason to save anything, just crawl into the finish.


Racing is somewhat silly, given there are plenty of women here who learned to ski long before they could walk. They have the most effortless form. And they wear jackets with letters that spell out Russia, Norway, Canada, Sweden, and Poland.

Not to say I haven't put in the miles. With close to six hundred miles this season of Nordic skiing, along with my weekly ski class (a coach constantly telling me I can step out on one ski and hang on to the glide.), I feel I have done everything I should have, could have, wanted to do. Besides the purpose of the race is not really about the event, but rather a good motivator to drag me up the mountain during those less than ideal conditions. I have skied in rain, I have skied in snowing, blowing conditions. And I have gone the extra mile ... Not once but on many occasions.

Racing I suppose represents a dream that we all have, of being the best in our sport, in our passion. And in this case our age category. It's fun to think of the possibility .... If I ski long enough, live long enough that I might reach the podium.

One day I might catch up to a jacket printed with Russia, Poland, Sweden, Canada, or Norway. Maybe by then I will have found a good ski jacket with not the American flag, but with Florida plastered across the back and a rather cold looking flamingo.

I could be my own version of the Jamaican bob sled team...

I will have gone the extra mile, not once, but on lots of occasions over the course of a lifetime. And even if I don't make the podium, I still will have been out there in the worst of conditions, having a blast.