Bretton Woods

This weekend I competed in the second of two ski marathons: the 41 kilometer “Bretton Woods Nordic Marathon”. While smaller than the Gatineau Loppet, it is a neat race in a gorgeous setting. The race starts in front of the venerable Mount Washington Hotel and winds its way up into the foothills between the hotel and its namesake mountain. You ski two laps of a 20+ kilometer loop.

As with the Gatineau Loppet, this was also an opportunity to road trip with friends, hang out in a fun hotel, and enjoy being in a beautiful place. Colin and Bob, (who past readers of this blog are familiar with), were there with their better halves, and my cousin Susan Fine joined Jill and Anne to form an all star support crew.

The race

The day of the race was sunny and clear, with snow covered Mount Washington towering over everything. Roughly a third of the field was collegiate racers, (a smattering of the ones not at the NCAA Championships currently being held in Montana), which injected palpable energy and talent into the event. Here is a photo of the start.

Those of you with the inclination to zoom in will find me roughly a third of the way in from the right, wearing a blue uniform and bib number 53. If you zoom even more purposefully, you will note two Dartmouth ski team members just ahead to my left, in green uniforms. I was chasing visions of my former self. That was as close as I ever got, and the last I saw of them.

From the vantage point of this retiree, the race went well. I managed to hang with a few of the collegiate racers, (okay, they may have been female racers, but still…), skied much of it with Bob and Colin, and felt strong the whole way. Out of 100+ racers, I ended up 33d overall and second in my age category. Here is a photo of Bob and me with one kilometer to go.

One of the great feelings in life is finishing a long distance endurance event, pulling dry clothes over tired muscles, and kicking back with friends and fellow competitors. Especially if it is a sunny March day with snow covered mountains all around. Bob, Colin, and I skied back to the start and retrieved various pieces of clothing and gear. Jill, Anne, and Susan met us in the finish area, where I was chatting with skiers I last saw forty years ago on the collegiate and national circuits. In another fun intersection of worlds, we caught up with Jimmy Pingeon, who we know from our summer community but rarely see outside of it.

Jill and I remained at Bretton Woods Sunday night after the race, (another clear benefit of being on a gap year), and had a nice dinner in the hotel with Susan. My pre-dinner martini tasted especially good.

Existential questions

Monday morning, I shook off the tiredness in my legs and did an easy ski around the race loop. It was sunny and warm- classic spring skiing- and I had the trails to myself. Thoroughly beautiful and a great time to meditate on some existential questions associated with my return to ski racing. As I glided through the birch and pine forest, I pondered a number of things.

You stand at the start line waiting for the gun to go off, prepare to endure intense pain for several hours, feel a mild sense of dread in your stomach, yet are intensely glad you are there. When you were competing on the collegiate level, there was a fundamental logic to it. Going faster than others helped your team win and improved your personal national ranking. It was what you were devoting your life to being good at, so being good mattered. At my current life stage, it is less clear why pushing one’s 60 year old body to go as fast as possible matters. Yet somehow it does, and it is deeply satisfying.

As described in previous posts, my objective in skiing some races this year was to see how it feels to re-connect with a sport that meant so much to me in my youth. As I needed to train hard for mountain climbing, and there is a high degree of overlap between how you train for mountain climbing and cross country ski racing, this was relatively easy to do. I am really glad I did it.

Now I’ve done it. As the rest of my gap year calls for Everest followed by a lot of sailing, ski racing is now suddenly in the rear view mirror. I am already starting to miss it. I look forward to the sailing, but I’ve now gotten myself back into decent physical shape and I hate to lose that. There is a very low degree of overlap between extended sailing and training for cross country skiing.

I’ve really enjoyed my brief return to ski racing; both the racing itself and all that comes with it. Perhaps most of all the discipline of daily training, and the time spent running and skiing through beautiful woods and fields. I can easily picture devoting an additional year or two to taking a shot at the world masters ski circuit. But I also really want to do the sailing. Would masters skiing be as satisfying if I were devoting that much of my life to it? Wouldn’t there be something mildly ridiculous about a 60 year old retired management consultant quasi-mimicking the life of a 25 year old World Cup racer? What about the non profit and business interests that I look forward to returning to after my gap year?

My ski loop finished before I resolved these questions. As I skied out of the woods and across the sun splashed fields to the hotel, I focused on what I knew for sure. This morning, in this place, I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, and I was beyond lucky to be doing it.

Moving forward

I fly to British Columbia at the end of this week for a family back country ski trip. Then, in less than three weeks, it’s off to Nepal. Fingers heavily crossed that the Coronavirus doesn’t mess things up. I will post more on all of that, and on Everest in general, when I return from Canada.