Walking away from my conversation with Erin Moening earlier this month felt a little like walking away from a really, really good sermon.

I felt inspired. Convicted.

Unsure.

Was I was pulling my own weight in the Nordic ski community?

Unlike many keyboard warriors, armchair quarterbacks or professional commentators (AKA complainers …myself included), Moening is out there in the trenches doing the hard work.

“I’m really lucky with all the content I’ve been able to absorb — either through Trail of Gold, working on the World Cup, but also through Bjorn at Out There, through my dad, through Chad, working with top-level athletes at training camps — and I just want to try to share that and bring people up to my level so I can continue to grow as well,” she said.

In addition to her coaches education conferences and the other efforts with Moening the Tracks, the Minnesotan is helping talented college athletes bridge the gap from the NCAA system to the next phase — whatever that is. So often, seemingly the ‘only’ option pushed into such a space is the SuperTour grind. While that’s certainly an irreplaceable component to our federation’s pipeline, I think there needs to be a bigger base in general if U.S. skiing is going to move forward sustainably. Moening agrees.

“There are so many different kinds of ways you can be a professional skier in the U.S.,” she said. “And my goal is just to get more people involved in U.S. domestic skiing past NCAA. … and allowing there to be a spot for anyone who wants to continue racing with a professional-level coach.”

On the show, I brought up the hordes of DIII runners who align their post-collegiate lives with the club road race scene, an Olympic Trials Qualifier, uphill trail running or ultras. Think of where our country could be if there was a similar culture in skiing? For that to happen, though, there has to be (at the very least) widespread recognition that skiing — and a truly competitive approach to skiing — can take place after college — even outside a Team Birkie or BSF club atmosphere.

In other words, local loppets shouldn’t be roughly the competitive equivalent to the Shovel Lake Turkey Trot. Those are OK and serve a purpose, don’t get me wrong. But we need a few more TC 10 milers in there, too. And, there shouldn’t be 20 women lined up for a Super Tour, either.

For Moening and others who venture out to educate and even support these types of 20-something-year-olds en masse, I predict many long nights spent doubting the project. Let’s face it: there ain’t going to be a lot of resources. You’re not going to feel like you’re walking along some wide path surrounded by supporters. Then again, if you wanted to do feel unanimous love, you could have wrangled together a few other Nordies and painted a couple POW posters or written a letter to your state senator about climate change advocacy. But you didn’t do that…because you actually wanted to do something.

Those depressing nights, psychological wrestling matches and emotional rollercoasters that leave you screaming at the moon, wondering whether you’re doing the right thing? It’s all part and parcel with making a lasting difference. So, keep the faith. Look at the long term vision.

I think folks like Erin Moening might be laying the ground work for a breakthrough our grandkids will only maybe start to sniff. In the era of immediate gratification, that’s a tough pill to swallow. But the real heroes in our Nordic community are up for it. You know why?

Because the real heroes aren’t the ones donning the flashy new US Ski Team kits, stepping onto Olympic podiums, being plastered across NBC ads or garnering thousands of likes on social media.

Nope.

It’s the coach who dons his headlamp to deal with a bunch of 12-year-olds screwing around on the infield warm-up area in rural Fergus Falls on the shortest day of the year….when it’s -12.

It’s the Mom who goes back to the car — again — to fetch gloves for her son, who was convinced he didn’t need them three minutes prior.

It’s the groomer who wakes up at 2 a.m. to check the forecast and put fuel in the Pisten Bully. It’s the same groomer who goes back out to re-groom after an unexpected dusting.

It’s the injured senior captain who writes fire up notes to each of her teammates before the section meet.

It’s the parent out on a ski with his or her five kids, stopping every five minutes for a hot cocoa break.

It’s the meet organizer who sends out emails, packs up prizes and misses countless family dinners to plan a 15K for 15 grateful locals.

It’s the motivated journalist writing the U.S. nationals gamer from Alaska for a flat rate of — after all the transcribing, typing and editing (and follow up emails for photo usage rights, coach quotes and factual clarifications) — $1.37/hour.

It’s the supplier who stashes away Start wax in little boxes to be sent to his client in Maryland, the 63-year-old woman who skis 12 days a year at Thanksgiving and Christmas — but needs her Oslo Racing Super.

It’s the small-town shop owner who gives the ‘really nice, good kid’ a little sponsorship money because, in the end, it’s not really about the money.

It’s the eighth man on the 1979 Ransack Junction high school team who never scored, never made it to state, never made it to nationals and never felt like ‘the dude’ EVER  — but laps that man-made loop at Spirit Mountain every day after work like he’s freakin’ Alexander Bolshunov at an Altai Mountain altitude camp just so he can finish his 20th Birkie like all the other anonymous classic striders who finish in the phone book section of the results.

And yes, maybe it’s even the podcaster who goes from 8 subs in year 1 to 36 in year 2 and seems stuck at 337 in year 5 — but keeps posting interviews with German athletes, continues to search for a communications manager for the Czech team to talk to Michal Novak and persistently badgers the unwilling reps from Norway and Sweden week after week after week after week after week after week …only to receive excuses and denials.

We’ve all got something to offer. What are you doing?

To listen to the full episode with Erin Moening, click HERE.