This weekend I skied the Canadian Ski Marathon. The Canadian Ski Marathon is a 160.4 kilometer ski over two days. It's a point to point tour over hills and plains and woods and farmland. It's beautiful. It's also cold, hard, and long. Ski conditions were slow and headwinds were high, but forests were still and wild and beautiful and the farmland was picturesque (although at points discouraging when one looked across the expanse of Canada and saw the long line of skiers ahead and behind and realized that there were about 56 more kilometers to ski that day, 43 of which had to be skied at a fast pace to make the time limit).
Highlights of the weekend:
-Waking up at five thirty in the morning in a high school classroom to Albertan country music. Sample lyrics:
The Chev got stuck and the Ford got stuck
But the Chev unstuck when the Dodge showed up
But the Dodge got stuck in the tractor rut,
Which eventually pulled out the Ford
With some difficulty
(Full lyrics here)
-Rest stations. I have never been that excited to see chocolate-covered peanuts in my entire life.
-Having my ski bindings fail 15km into the first day. I hereby raise a hearty middle finger to Salomon, the makers of a ski binding that inevitably always breaks down when exposed to snow and/or cold condtions.
-Being served honey water by the Canadian army. I have a rather high opinion of the Canadian army now.
-Being passed by a team of 55 to 75 year old men (they were really cool, two of them had represented the US at the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics)
-Talking about how Emil Zatopek was our personal hero with one of those old men on section six when wax was failing and it seemed highly unlikely that we'd make time limit.
-The long sections of beauty.
-The brutal five kilometer downhill where I fell three times at high speeds.
-The songs stuck in my head: Canada's Really Big, The Barack Obama song, FC Slavia's anthem, aforementioned Albertan Country, lots and lots of Czech folk, songs from Hair and songs from Rent
-team camaraderie and the friendship shared by people who do things like these
-standing on top of the podium with a bunch of guys as the only girl who finished in the shortened limit time. I shouldn't be cocky, but it was a really nice feeling.
-Seeing all the people who were doing CSM Gold - skiing 160 km with a 20 pound backpack and sleeping outside in the Canadian winter in a bale of hay. A lot of them were about 60. I want to be that cool when I'm 60.
-post-race delirium - I literally didn't know what was going on around me and wanted to melt into solid objects
-the showers running out of hot water, resulting in a cold shower post 80km of skiing in the cold
Right now it's difficult to so much as put on pants, so I'm giving myself a break from adventures until Wednesday. I think adventures were had for the time being. I also pulled an all-nighter last night writing a hydrology analysis. All I want is chocolate and sleep.
