If I only get one chance to race in a season, I try to do the Bjornloppet. Aside from having a name that makes your non-cross country skiing friends imagine an activity involving hot Swedish guys, it’s a small, friendly race with great trees and views along an impeccably groomed course.
And despite taking place in Bear Valley, California, not Sweden, the Bjornloppet does have its share of hot shots, though I can’t say I’ve ever skied next to one. They generally take off like rockets while the rest of us are still busy jabbing the people behind us, trying to keep anyone from passing during the obligatory double-poling section of the race. Not that I would ever do that.
At last year’s Bjornloppet, held in early March, the weather could not have been finer as we assembled at the start line five minutes before 11 a.m. I had signed up for the 20 km, but the best news about this race is that you can downgrade to the 10 km at the end of the first loop if you feel as though you’re about to have a near-death experience. In my case, this was not so farfetched as it might sound, given that I had risen at 5:30 a.m. and driven 180 miles with a 6000-foot altitude gain to make it in time. Now, leaning on my poles waiting for the start signal, I wasn’t quite sure if I would be able to breathe, let alone ski.
I felt adrenaline surge through my body as the race began, which I think is the only reason my legs started moving at all. Then I jockeyed for position as if I were planning to win the race and not just beat my previous time. This went on for five minutes or so, until everyone had either passed me or paused to recharge his pacemaker.
After that I found myself virtually alone in the forest, which is the way I love it when I’m skiing anyway. But as I began mentally working out the plot of my next unpublished novel, I heard the unmistakable scrape of skis approaching from behind. I glanced back. If it were a woman who looked remotely near my age, I’d have to ask her how old she was. (There was no point in taxing myself unless she was in my division.)
Fortunately the skier was not female. But unfortunately, I would still have to speed up. I didn’t want to be beaten by a kid who hadn’t finished elementary school, no matter how cute he was.
I needn’t have worried, because the kid dropped out at the end of the first 10 km loop. "That’s what separates the women from the boys," I thought smugly to myself, deciding to continue on just to prove that point. But I instantly regretted his departure, as I no longer had anyone to pace myself against. Moreover, if I went back to figuring out the climax of my breakthrough novel, I might make a wrong turn and never complete the race at all.
Somehow I managed to remain on track. At last, crossing the finish line, I was greeted by friends who’d returned so long ago they’d had time to eat lunch. They introduced me to the two women ahead of and behind me in the race and we discovered we were astonishingly alike in age, gender, finish time and having left our husbands and children at home. My husband was sick, which made him the designated babysitter. I suppose somewhere there are people who do the laundry, cook homemade meals and entertain the children, while their sick spouses lie in bed eating bon bons and watching DVDs. At our house, as soon as one of us sneezes, the other is in the garage loading skis and poles into the car.
You know it’s a great race when all the participants can squish into one room for the party afterwards, the resort owners themselves serve you free spaghetti, the prizes are things you can actually use and "Best Wipeout" is a prize-winning category. At our table, my friends and I competed for the "Best Excuse for Not Winning" award. My own list was remarkably similar to everyone else’s: No time to adjust to the altitude, forgot to wax, must be catching my husband’s cold, ate too much for breakfast by mistake and Mercury was out of alignment. We conceded a tie all around.
Not to brag, but one year I came in second in my division. Okay, so there were only two of us, but I won a large boot bag. I began storing all five pairs of our family’s collective cross country boots in there. Later when my sister came to visit, she informed me it was designed for only one pair of downhill ski boots. After that, I was particularly happy to have chosen cross country as my sport of preference, because I wouldn’t want to wear anything on my feet that had the same volume as five pairs of normal-sized footwear.
When I returned home that night, I checked my results from five years ago and was astonished to learn that my time had improved by 25 minutes. To help those of you who are mathematically challenged, I used my calculator to determine that my time decreased five minutes per year. If I keep this up—and I see no reason why I shouldn’t—then in seven years I’m going to come in first in all divisions. I’m marking that date on my calendar. If I’m lucky, I’ll win a downhill ski bag to store our family’s five sets of skis and poles.
