Well as December 2012 turns to January 2013 ..... we welcome the blanket of snow for skiing in the U.P. We begin to log the miles we enjoy on the trails, 30 miles and counting, that beckon us in the beautiful forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is such a joy to glide on the trails past trees blanketed in the first snows of the season. Its a peaceful yet body active experience. Dave and I got one short ski in on Thanksgiving weekend, the first skiable snow here, just one day after our last 9 holes of playing golf nearby!--that's the U.P. magic! By now the trails are groomed and the normal temps of the 20's have arrived. The trail is frozen in place with a dusting of new snow every few days. Even though some roadways have melted ,the trails remain true and ready for skiing. The shade of the woods enable them to carry on.
If you have never cross country skied, i will try to describe why i LOVE it so and used to love teaching it to those who hated winter "as nothing to do". It is a sport of many levels. You can simply shuffle along at a walkers pace, put a bit of lean into your stride and begin to glide on the tracked tail ,or pick up the pace and challenge yourself with race pace strides. The trails are looped so you can do a short 1 mile trail , repeat it for some more miles, or connect to another loop from it and go for 2,3,4,5,10,miles! The trails are marked with level of difficulty: "easier" ( beginner)to "more difficult"(intermediate) and "most difficult"(advanced). The ability levels relate to terrain: flat, climbing, down hills, and or length. An "easy" trail is fairly flat and short. A "more difficult" trail will be longer and have some hills. The "most difficult" trails will be biggest climbs and downhills or longer in length. It is a sport for everyone- "anyone that can walk can ski" ( but with some instruction even one lesson or skiing with an experienced skier you can ski behind and mimic-- it will NOT feel like walking on skis!!). At race pace, it is the sport that burns the most calories and uses all the muscles in the body--coined the "best aerobic exercise" that you can do!
Dave and I started out with wood skis in the 70's, when we bought our first pair of skis the year after we were married. It was so great to start a sport together, perhaps one of the reasons after 40 yrs of marriage we still enjoy skiing together! With wood skis you had to paint the bottoms with pine tar to prevent ware ,then wax them for temperature. We really enjoyed these skis and learning how to wax. My brother Dale, a bicycle enthusiast , bought skis when we did, and loved cross country skiing. He was a real ski buddy from the start and we skied many miles with him , including driving out to state parks in blizzard conditions and night skiing too! My parents even bought a pair of first generation no-wax skis to ski with us at the local milwaukee county parks. I currently still have all of their skis to use with freinds:) We did an all day ski outing for freinds from Dave's office with about 12 people one Saturday, a weekend outing in Door county with his boss and wife, and another Saturday outing with Dave's parents and sisters( even daves Dad ,Walter skied!!!). Such fun!!
After a few years of skiing we decided to sign up for a ski instruction weekend at a historic resort in northern Wisconsin, to get more proficient at technique. The instructor had us put away our poles and play soccer on the frozen lake with our skis on, to understand that our legs not our arms ultimately controlled your movement . We learned to have a loose grip on our poles, to just use them to propel forward( when in a body lean slightly forward, the pole should also be at an angle and come down by your foot).This body angle makes the difference between walking and gliding on skis!!!A good glide begins to feel a bit like ice skating and flows over the tracks. And you lengthen or shorten your stride with the terrain longer strides on the flats, shorter on the climbs and poles tucked with a good lean forward on steep downhills.This is called "Nordic skiing" or in-track skiing. We ended our fun and ski changing weekend with a candlelight night ski ,wearing headlights in the darkness of the forest around us...such fun!!After this weekend we purchased our second pair of skis- light weight waxable racing skis that were fitted correctly to our weight. We skied the trails of Southern Kettle Moraine in Wisconsin, which they "groom"(track) the hiking trails and made them one way for safer skiing.
We began to log our hours, as we had a goal of trying to ski 250 miles a winter. A few years later, we soon we added 5-10-15-30 km racing to those miles.I even took a first and second place in two co-ed races...that was a suprise!We trained off season with "roller skis"( short wood skis about 3 feet long with a ski boot binding on them and with 2 sets of wheels on the back and one on the front ) and poles on the bike trail and running up grassy hills in sneakers with our ski poles in the park near our first home in Milwaukee in 1979.
Then we met some skiing freinds who challenged us to join them to ski the USA xc ski marathon in northern Wisconsin, a 55km/35mi trail called the "Birkebeiner" . It used a downhill ski resort to start the race up and down the downhill to begin and through the forest and over the frozen lakes on groomed trails in route. Our logging our miles and short races were to build us up to get ready for this end of the season marathon. Dave and I skied this marathon 3 times, my last one was the winter after I gave birth to our first daughter Katie.in 1983. Everyone that finished the race received a lovely medal on a red-white and blue ribbon (regardless of time it took you to ski it). We skied it not as a race, but just for completion, but tried to improve our own time each yr.The last time we skied it in 5 1/2 hrs . This is a race skied by USA Olympians as a first wave of skiers to hit the trail, then citizen racers as the second wave. Olympians finished it is 3 hrs ..we did our first in 7 hrs! It was something I will never forget as we skied with people of all ages. I remember skiing past an elderly woman who spoke Norwegian( this race draws internationals as well as USA participants) that looked my way with a nice smile as she passed me with ease! It was funny how Dave paced me for the first half/17 miles, leading the way; and I got more energy for the second half and paced him (sometimes singing Joni Mitchell songs in my adrenalin high-he he).
We had learned well how to dress in non- cotton layers to keep the dangerous, wet ,sweat away from our skin( non cotton layers send the sweart to middle layers to keep your skin dry and body temp safe . But, unfortunately some did not ,and wearing the no-no cotton sweatsuits layers they had icicles hanging off their clothing and succumbed to hypothermia (lowering their body temperatures quickly with the cold ,wet sweat) and had to be taken off the course by first aid staff. ( I remember seeing them sitting down in exhaustion by trees along the trail.). One skier fell in front of David on the first giant downhill of the ski area trail and sent Dave into a somersault over the guy to avoid landing on him,which flipped his pole and the sharp tip scraped off his glasses and left a bleeding cut on the side of his nose.Luckily the "mass start" of many lines of skiers, could not move very quickly at the start as you had to shuffle along in mass pace until people began to spread out a bit ,so Dave had time to regain his composure and keep skiing.Although the first aid people took him away at the the finish line as his niose was still bleeding a bit .When he took off his skis at the end of the race,and held them upright, the ski tip on one of his skis limped over.In his fall early in the race to avoid the fallen skier ahead of him, he had broken one of his kis and didnt even realize it as the plastic bottom held it in place while he finished the race!The "Birke" as people affectionaletly call it, was a real adventure for us and gave us the incentive and motivation to ski as many miles as we could each winter in preparation!!
Later in the 80's I took a ski instructor class and got my Prof Ski instructor of America(PSIA)certification. From this I began to teach skiing through a local ski store and later developed my own x-c ski instruction program for two local park districts (one using local ski shop rental equip and one with their own equip). It was such a joy to see adults who never recreated in winter( since kids on sleds or skates), begin to enjoy and look forward to winter!!. It was difficult to talk parents out of taking classes with their kids, but teaching adults and teaching children is like black and white different. Adults are afraid of the hills and kids look for them!..he he I taught both classes but never together!! My classes were indoor and outdoor instruction and covered all the things I thought they would like to learn about: dressing for skiing,where to ski locally, buying,care and waxing of skis, and all basic instruction starting with how to get up from a fall( most embarrassing and discouraging for beginners). I taught for a few years until we stopped getting adequate snow to put even 3 class dates together. I took 3 months off from my educational consulting business in winter each year to teach skiing, which was a nice change of pace in my self employment.It was a fun part time job in winter when my girls were very young, and I could teach it on weekday evenings and Saturdays so required no child care as Dave was home with the girls :)
Dave and I transitioned into "skating" skis (1990's)and later, vastly improved "no wax" skis(2000) for warm skiing conditions when waxing is less productive. In the 40 years we have been skiing, each 10 yrs we seemed to have transitioned the sport to fit our interests. And now having multiple pairs of skis allows us to invite others to ski with us!!Now at age 60 ,we ski for exercise and fun and try to challenge ourselves to trails with climbs and downhills for interval skiing and ones we can do in an hour or two but ski as regularly as we have access tosnow. It continues to be a fun sport we look forward to doing as a couple. We even chose our retirement to be in upper Michigan, so we can enjoy as much skiing as possible, as long as our health allows. This is a sport, like golf, you can do well into your 70's if you keep yourself healthy!
Well here's to a healthy, happy, exercise- filled winter of 2013!!
