Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/20776
gratulate, you had your feet operated on just three months ago and you’ve recovered, fit, if not really fast. And always, always, the clincher: If I had only trained harder, only given it more, I wouldn’t be back here in the middle again. Going past the start banner for the second time and heading into another 17-kilometer loop, I feel amazingly good. But after just two more kilometers the sun starts to shine over the trees and the snow becomes slow and rutted. On a moderate but depressingly long hill, I pass a woman who says, “Ugh! This is awful!” And it is. Suddenly I’m alone, all alone. No one ahead, no one be- hind. I could be skiing on any other weekend in West Yel- lowstone. I think about this as I watch the snow-covered summits of the Gallatin Mountains slip in and out of the trees, as I watch the great Yellowstone Plateau sprawl away into the haze, its grizzly bears sleeping, its bison lounging beside geyser pools. Isn’t it enough to have such a home? Isn’t it enough to feel that you live in the center of a kind horizon? What does it matter if you go 50-odd kilometers on two pieces of slippery fiberglass in under 180 minutes? Going past the starting line a third time, I feel content— keeping the pace. Then half a dozen skiers pass me, going hard in a pack and not doing the post-aid-station dawdle as I am. I passed every single one of them five kilometers before! Where did they come from? And what’s wrong with me? At the first hills, as I change stride and begin to climb, I know exactly what’s wrong: I’m bonking. It’s not so much physical weariness as a mental disinclination to be doing this anymore. There seems no reason to get into an aerodynamic tuck on downhilIs, no reason to give those extra double- poles that cut seconds off one’s time. What are seconds at this point? And if one is honest with oneself—yes, I am talk- ing to myself in the aloof third person—if one is honest with oneself, one has to admit that this is why one never breaks three hours in a marathon. The game loses its importance. Then the calves and quads start to hurt, as well as the lower back, and there seems to be no energy in the core, nothing with which to push up those hills. Instead of skat- ing them, I start herringboning them. On their backsides I don’t even try to gain speed. What’s the point? My wax is Belgrade Liquor Everything imaginable lousy! From out of nowhere the man in red and the wom- an in blue, whom I passed so long ago, skate easily by. He is tall and well built, black hair, dark sunglasses, his red Lycra a little baggy in the rear. His timing is just a little off, too; not enough extension on his glide. (If you can’t catch someone, you might as well criticize him.) She is short, with bobbed blond hair and turquoise earrings. She has an effortless skating motion—pole-glide, pole-glide, pole-glide—slightly marred by a dysfunctional but charm- ing little flip of her left hand as it goes back. OK, give her equal time. A worthless little hand-motion that needs to be eradicated if she is ever going to skate well! The things you think of when you can’t catch people! Turning the next corner, they disappear behind a screen of trees. Then those invidious comparisons begin. Well! You From specialty liquors to a state-of-the-art storage facility. Belgrade Liquor 7001 Jackrabbit Lane 406-388-6858 www.belgradeliquor.com Located in the Albertson’s Shopping Plaza 32 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2011