Ben and Mom Nordic Racing

hi this is Ben writing this(i assume since you are reading this family blog post that you know who i am) i did a race up at mountain dell (me and my mom had a little wager we would divide our time by the number of ks in the race we did aka kilometer but that is a moth full so i will just say ks and the person with the smallest ratio of time to ks wins 5 dollars from the other)it was not a short race well the race was the same length as all my other races but it turned out i was still a wee bit sick i was sick the week before however i was according to me "fine" and also "recovered" but surprise surprise it turned out i only thought that i had recovered and buy the top of the first hill all of my "boundless energy" was gone. over to mom.

Jamie: As I was racing in the novice category, I was in the last group to start. That means that we started right behind the 70+ category (Nordic skiers age well!). Determined not to be outdone by 70-year-olds, I started strong and worked up a good sweat going up the initial hill only to see the little old ladies zipping by me on the downhill. It turns out that if you're racing on your 15-year-old backcountry cross country skis, you should really consider waxing them before the race.

Ben: so in by middle i was very annoyed seeing as every time i started going to the finish the core turned agin so i was going away from the finish arrrrrrrg why i was done after like the tenth of those such turns(i don't know how long it actually was it felt like that though) i wasn't going very fast at all but i was very determined so i did actually end in me beating my mom and getting 5$ so thats a good thing for me at least but on the next race my mom so... tune in nest week for another exciting episode of cross country ski race betting

Jamie: Yeah, so I ended up totally not being able to keep up with the 70-year-olds, but I did finish the race and with a smile on my face, so we'll consider that a victory. I echo Ben's frustration that the seemingly neverending series of loops toward and then away from the finish were a lot of mental anguish for this first-timer to take ("Home stretch" "Wait - why are the people in front of me turning away from the finish?" "Noooo it's another 1 k loop before I finish!") but I was glad for the experience. Next time I'll wax my skis, lose 20 pounds before the race, and totally win $5 off my 12-year-old kid.