High school x-country ski career

Today as I was taking a break from my readings I decided to Google my name. I've done this a few times before and it's always been some other Sarah from Germany but never myself. Today was different. There were 3 sites that had me in them, the first was a babysitting site that I had filled out an application form for a while back when I was desperate for work. The second was for a friend's blog (I'm not sure why mine didn't show up). The third was a race log from 2005 when I participated in the southern Ontario's cross country skiing.

Ever since then I had thought that I was a fairly terrible skier. During these races people would start at different times so if you were ever lapped then you were considered to be doing fairly poorly.

Just so you know I really disliked competition and still do. I believe that one shouldn't compare themselves with anyone else to see value in themselves but to do the best that they can or to have the most enjoyment out of life as possible.
With that in mind I did not want to be put into this race, I had joined the cross country ski team that year just to be taught how to do it.

My mom had been one of the best X-country skiers in her high school in Thunder Bay. I find this very impressive since Thunder Bay has one of the highest populations of Finnish people outside of Finland (they really like to cross country ski) and it's a very winter sport oriented community. This is one of the main reasons why I wanted to learn. One of my friends was also on the team and had invited me to come along and I also thought that it would be a wonderful way to spend winters as I didn't have a winter sport beyond tobogganing (which apparently doesn't count...).

On to the race! At the beginning everyone lined up to see everyone go off, even though I'm anti-competative (?) I still do not like looking as though I am lazy and don't try. So I gave it at the beginning so that I didn't appear that way. The rest of the time I just enjoyed the scenery and listened to my music. It wasn't until the third or fourth person passed me that I began to get a little disheartened and especially when the guys started passing me since they weren't supposed to begin racing until much later than me (or so was my impression).

At this race there was this hill called the "S" climb which was maybe a bit steeper than 45 degrees and was nearly possible to go up. Everyone from my school had to do the duck walk (or pie or pizza walk). Once I was half way up the guys started coming and they just ran right up it, full fledged skiing, up it in less than a minute while I was huffing and puffing for a good 3 minutes. The worst thing was that my crush from K-gr. 5 was there and he was one of the people that flew past me. And the even worse thing was that my teacher was at the top of the hill video taping the whole thing! So I had no idea if it was going to make a preview in the following spirit assemblies with me nearly having an asthmatic attack and collapsing in the snow once I got to the top. Thankfully it wasn't shown to the whole school but I was a little angry that he was doing that since it was not my shining moment in my cross country skiing career, as short as it was. Except for at the end of the race when I fell on my face trying to get out of the forest; and when my crush asked me to get out of the way so that he could keep his speed up and I went to the wrong side and fell into a snow bank & couldn't get out; and the first time I went for a major downhill section and had my one ski get stuck in a rut resulting in me doing cartwheels down the rest of the slop.

Back to today, as I was having my break I ended up looking through the list and found out that I was one of the best in our entire school! I had even came in the top 10 girls for the whole race! So I now feel much better about myself and my xcountry ski skills :)

OH if anyone has ever wanted to learn I can help you OR there's this group of people that will actually teach you and provide equipment for you! Here's their website: http://www.skiforlife.net/events.htm also at laurel creek you can rent everything you need for $12/day which is great!