Botched wax. Slow skis. Slushy snow. 

Cut off, collided and crashed. Broken poles.

Missed the break. Missed a feed.

Froze.

Just. Didn’t. Have it.

“That’s ski racing,” they told me.

This reoccurring phrase took on a very visceral reality for me over the course of my Midwest ski-racing swing (and miss).

I envisioned a grand return when I came back to my boyhood home state for three races — like Klaebo coming back to Trondheim for worlds. Exaggerations aside, I carried high expectations, good health and great fitness into the American Birkebeiner, Pepsi Challenge and the Ski North Ultra, but simply failed to capitalize. Reflecting and diagnosing the ‘why’ hasn’t been a futile exercise per se — I’ve noted a variety of factors which contributed to my disappointing performances — but that hasn’t soothed my damaged narcissistic ego. Rather, it’s only served to reinforce a frustrating truth about this sport: sometimes, stuff happens.

“That’s ski racing,” an aid station worker reminded me as I huddled in a blanket underneath two sleeping bags and fought off incessant, uncontrolled shivering. I was 27K into the third and final race of my ‘fun’ 14-day stretch. Little did I know that the inaugural Ski North Ultra 100k (106.2k for me…more on that in a minute) would encapsulate every aspect of what can go right and wrong in a race.

Roughly 45 minutes before those words were uttered, I was alone in second place, double-poling freely through flowing singlegtrack. Suddenly, the wind came up and the snow started to fall. The forecast — temps around 22 at the start and reaching 40 for a high — seemed unlikely, unimaginable even, as I felt my core freeze. My legs tightened, causing a downhill fall — my first in years. Karl Holub and Adam Swank, third and fourth at the time, caught me.

Karl kindly asked to go in front, offering to block the wind. I snuck in behind, but later let Adam go up, knowing my frozen limbs made me a liability on the tight trails and blind corners. About 2k from the 27k aid, I stumbled again — going uphill — and broke a pole.

Could this entire trip get any worse?

Eventually, I managed to collect and claw myself to the aid station. I dialed my wife, who was waiting with our daughters 20k down the trail.

“I broke a pole,” I said.

“Oh no!” I heard Christie exclaim on the other end. “Where are you?”
“I’m in rough shape,” I said, ignoring her question. “I need to warm-up. I’m in rough shape,” I repeated. “Bring my poles and extra clothes.”

Warm drinks and food were offered to me. A single blanket grew into a mountain of covers. I peeked out of my cave and caught familiar faces of various Twin Cities-area skiers as they came through to grab a drink. The snow was falling hard; between bites of banana I could discern discouraged looks all painting an impending reality:

“Man, this is going to be a lot longer day than I thought.”

After about 15 minutes, I accepted one worker’s offer to put me in his truck. He turned up the heated seat and blasted warm air through the vents. Shortly after, my parents arrived, then my wife. As they stood outside waiting around, my brain grasped at straws, helplessly striving to concoct some formidable and justified reason to just call it a day. In the back of my mind, however, I knew that if I left, I not only would ruin the day for myself and my fans, but would eventually feel like going back outside to ski later anyway.

‘You’re all the way here,’ I said to myself. ‘You have a chance to ski right now. Just do it.’

I swapped socks, put on a warmer tight, layered that with my mom’s track warm-up pants, and topped everything with a full-on Swix puffy. I shifted my mindset. Then — 65 minutes after I’d showed up — I left the 27k aid (with a new pair of poles).

“I was supposed to win this,” I sighed with a surprising joviality to the aid station worker, who could only say one thing in response to my awkward, braggadocios statement:

“Well, that’s ski racing.”

For the next 5k, I skied cautiously, making sure I didn’t fall or snap another pole in the crusty conditions. I warmed up quickly, and by 32k, I was ready to ditch my jacket and extra pants, which I did. Over the next 40k, I steadily climbed through the ranks, only passing people. My strength and spirit grew every time I saw my parents and wife and kids, who gave me hugs and cheered with hopeful vigor.

I realized even then I never would have been able to finish without them being there. My embarrassment for disappointing them throughout the three weeks paled in comparison to the gratitude I felt for having them pull me along on this day.

At 75k, I started to wonder if the top-5 was still possible. I would find out later that it most certainly was, but unfortunately, it was right here that I accidentally took a wrong turn and skied 2.2k in the wrong direction. The worker who eventually collected me at the defining juncture and explained what I’d done happened to be the same young lady who had helped me when I was freezing 50k prior.

After discussing possible options, I opted to simply retrace my tracks, meet up with the course and continue on.

Prior to this point, the hardest part of the race hadn’t been physical, but mental. My mindset coming in was basically podium or bust…go for the win. After the hypothermic delay, that seemed unrealistic, but thanks to my strong skiing, objective placement had become a carrot once again.

You see, at no point had I truly elected to just ‘enjoy the day’ and forget about competing altogether. Now, however, I was challenged with the same dilemma: give up on ‘trying’ and just ski in easy OR keep hammering and see what happens.Except this time, I was starting to feel the physical toll of the events’ demands, too.

The next 10k was the slowest, sunniest section of the course, which only added to my exhaustion. I’d never double-poled longer than 60k before, so I was well into uncharted territory. Somehow, I felt fine. My electrolyte balance and fuel needs were running on fumes, but I was confident I could get to Christie and the kids at the final aid, 89k (or 93k for me) into the race.

Over the final 12k — having snarfed a few bananas and granola bars and guzzled a gallon of Tailwind — I felt ready to fly again. I’ll admit, the ‘would’ve-could’ve-should’ves’ from the day crept in a little as I made quick and easy work of the last gradual climbs, but for the most part, I was just enjoying the simple process of poling and gliding.

Of skiing.

****

The afternoon before the Ultra, I skied with Christie and my parents along the perfectly manicured Pincushion Trails. At some point after, I found myself alone in the club’s warming hut, staring at a poster from the 1991 American Birkebeiner. Brightly-clad skiers donning swollen skate boots and Excel poles splashed across the wall. Everyone looked like they were taking their races very seriously.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that I recognized exactly zero faces on the poster. I’m sure one of the skiers plastered front-and-center in a finish-line stretch was an elite athlete or the winner of that edition, but I didn’t know who it was. I know, embarrassing, right? How could I — the unofficial-official xc skiing ambassador and host of the fourth-fastest and largest growing Nordic ski specific podcast in all of Lake County NOT know who the relevant citizens racers were in the early 90s!?

A few days later, I was in my parents’ living room in Moorhead, getting ready to drive back to Leadville. On the coffee table was a copy of Ryan Rodgers’ book “Winter’s Children.” One of my favorite reads, the book fantastically chronicles the seminal figures and monumental moments in the sport’s growth, particularly in the Midwest, but really, in North America as a whole. One anecdote I find particularly interesting is the retelling of the 1938 Arrowhead Derby, a race from Duluth to St. Paul.

I’m not sure what’s more amazing: the fact that people back then felt this course was possible or the fact that organizers felt it was necessary to make it an INTERVAL START!

Peter Fosseide won the 247-kilometer, 5-day stage race and collected $150 in merchandise ($2770 in 2020 dollars) from a $300 total purse for his efforts. Like those anonymous Birkie poster athletes, I couldn’t remember his name in writing this column, so I had to look it up.

All throughout this trip, I’ve snuck in moments to watch the FIS World Championships from Trondheim, Norway. Johannes Klaebo etched his name into history by going six-for-six, sweeping the top step of the podium in every event at the championships. All at a venue 5 minutes from where he grew up, no less. Talk about eternal glory.

Juxtaposing Klaebo with Fosseide or the unnamed poster children of the biggest race on the continent highlights something important in terms of perspective:

Whenever we set out to do something great — whether in a singular ski or a season or a career — we discover how simultaneously glorifying and humbling history can be.

When the 32-year-old coach of the girls basketball team at Ransack Junction (go Jackrabbits!) sinks into his front-row bus seat after falling in the first round of the Class 3A District tournament, he doesn’t need a reminder that he will probably never get a trophy named in his honor, even if he set out on the coaching journey hoping to someday be immortalized. But trying to be Vince Lombardi is OK, even if you start in a small South Dakota town. Glen Miller grew up in Fort Morgan, something I was reminded of as I drove home through the night and saw the sign outside his remote Colorado hometown.

In the end we all experience the tension of enjoying our toil and embracing each moment as much as striving for a long-lasting legacy. We all innately thirst for our own Trondheim moment. We’d all take a sign outside our birthplace. We’d all be ok with being on the front of a poster, even if its on the wall of a lodge in the middle of nowhere. We all want glory because we’re made in the image of the one person worthy of worship and glory.

And in moments of honest introspection, those natural inclinations might not manifest themselves athletically for everyone. Maybe you want to revel in preparing the best holiday meal, cashing the biggest paycheck or owning the most land. Maybe you’re driven by social media status and attention, hoping for more and better comments on every post. Perhaps you desire the feeling of everyone’s eyes on you as you pull into the parking lot with the nicest car. Maybe you want to be on the radio really bad so other people have to listen to you.

The thing is, most of us won’t reach a pinnacle achievement of super significant grandeur. And when we do, there probably won’t be 100,000 adoring fans praising us…like Klaebo in the 50k world championship. Most of our pursuits look a lot more like breaking a pole, freezing, going off course, and finishing an hour off the win in a minuscule Minnesota race …and then realizing your fingertip is black from frostbite (true story) while warming up in the lodge with a bowl of black bean soup.

No matter what happens, however, when the sun rises again, it’s a blank slate. A new day. One in which nothing is guaranteed.

That’s ski racing.

And life.

…He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,  who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.  They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (I Tim. 6:15-19)