Lake Placid Loppet

I put on cross-country skis for the fourth time in my life on Saturday and did a 25K race. There was something inside me that wondered how hard this could really be? It's like flat skiing. Right? My frozen body shuffled up to the start line looking around - right? right guys? how hard can this really be? It's like flat skiing! Then the gun fired and I literally thought something was wrong with my skis because I couldn't move. (Here I go with another vast misconception - I'm not going fast enough, and it couldn't possibly be me!)

So the start was rough. And the first 5-10K were slow. Really slow. Turns out, there were hills. Big ones. But like my niece Eloise told me, the downhills would be fun - and they were. As long as I didn't look like Bambi at the bottom, I could catch my breath! And I started watching people all around me and mimicked their movements. Eventually I started passing people and picked up my pace. I ended up finishing in 2 hours and 43 minutes - about a half hour faster than I had expected. AND, I finished 2nd in my age group - crazy. So there were five others in my age group - who cares - I was still a silver medalist! And don't think I didn't wear that medal all night. John finished a half hour before me and placed first in his age group of one:) Out of the five of us who raced, three took home medals. Not too shabby.