Suspended disbelief, on skis

They laughed.  We laughed.  They at our skis.  We with simple exhilaration.

What started as beer-in-the-hot-tub talk actually came to fruition under the planning and persuasion prowess of a friend in Whistler.  We entered a ski race.

Co-ed teams of 4, each team member skiing from the top of Whistler ski hill to the Creekside base - 1,443 m of vertical drop, over 5km of piste, and 170-180 gates.  Combined team member age determined your category.  Combined team time determined your finishing place.

It gave us great comfort to read that a typical GS (Grand Slalom) ski race has about 250m of vertical drop, and 35 gates...

The wednesday before the race, Colin and I got serious and watched a YouTube video of a previous year's event.  Skin suits?!!  Er, I declared Thursday evening ski-waxing night.

My teammates were various combinations of retired, self-employed, in-transition, season-pass-holder, able-to-ski-whenever-I-want types.  One is a ski patrol, one is a mountain safety guy.  As a full-time employee, I trained through the accounts and tips of their many weekday reconnaissance runs down the course.  Oh, and I went for a nice ski tour off the top of the Sea-to-Sky gondola the weekend before.

6-8 minutes they were figuring, based on research of last year's results, and the 5 minutes it was taking them to ski the course, without gates, on their reconnaissance runs.  Agreed-upon team goals:
1.  DO NOT miss a gate - this results in disqualification; if you miss a gate, hike back up to it.
2.  Make it to the finish line.
My third and secret goal was to not exceed 10 minutes - I kept that quiet.

Two of our teammates raced Friday, and both clocked times just over 8 minutes.  Colin and I were on for Saturday.  We did some warm up runs with the Friday guys, checking out the course and getting some last-minute tips, before we stopped at the Roundhouse for The Last Coffee.

Number 77 on my race bib - that meant I started 77 minutes after 11:00am.  Colin, with bib number 88, would start after me.

Just below The Saddle, in the raging winds, officials stacked us up ten at a time at the start gate, releasing skiers at 1-minute intervals.  As I side-stepped my way down the line towards the gate, I calmed the butterflies by commenting to my fellow racers on my joy at seeing more ski pants than skin suits in our group of ten.  I wasn't the only first-timer.  I then discussed with the gentleman behind me how he was going to gently pass me if (when) he caught me.  The drop off of the start gate got closer, and more-cliff like - figuratively and literally.  I couldn't even see the first gate.

I am a slow-twitch type, meaning my muscles are predominantly slow-twitch fibres, enabling them to keep on going for long endurance activities, but not necessarily powerfully.  Downhill skiing is a fast-twitch exercise, for great big quads made up of predominately fast-twitch fibres enabling short but powerful bursts of movement.  Crouching into my first tuck after about gate 5 or 6, there was already smouldering smoke trailing from quads.

The course was scratchy (icy), and I kept control by turning early, on snow, outside of the rutted ice track.  I was enjoying that, which also meant I was conscientiously heeding the advice of experts, not waiting until the actual gate to initiate the turn (risking skidding, having to correct and traverse sideways to catch it), until I realized I was probably adding about a km to my route by staying out of the path-of-least-resistance track.  Ah, but I was still alive, I reassured myself.

Look at that skier stance! ...real skier knees are bent
down to at least 20 degrees

On the less steep bits, I hugged the line, and even managed to brush a couple gates with my shoulder.  I giggled.

Only once did I get confused among the gates, but corrected in time and did not miss. I payed close attention to the end, knowing that a few people had missed that last one or two gates.  How demoralizing.

Meanwhile, Colin had decided in his head on the morning gondola ride that an hour was made up of 50 minutes.  As number 88, that meant he raced at 11:00 + 88 minutes: 12:38pm.  Arriving at The Saddle at about 12:20, he did not want to stand in the raging winds for 20 minutes.  He hiked to a sheltered area, did some warm up, before heading back to the start area 10 minutes before his start time.

As Colin approached the start area, our Friday-race friends, a hundred metres down the course, were hearing continuously on the loudspeaker: "Number 88.  Where are you Number 88.  Colin, Colin.  We are going to keep calling your name out until you show up at the gate.  Number 88, Colin..."

A bit more of a race face on than #77...

Number 87 was off, and Number 89 was standing in the gate when Number 88, Colin, was rushed to the start by encouraging shouts.  Number 88 Colin concluded afterwards that, while not the ideal way to start a race, it certainly saved having to stand around for 10 minutes getting more and more nervous...

Number 88 Colin, who needed the most persuasion as the least experienced skier among us, also threw down the fastest time on our team, and won the opportunity to buy the first round.  I met secret team goal #3, with a time of 9:55.  At the bottom of the course, as we waited for our times to go up on the board, an official looked at our skis and said "you raced in touring skis?!"

Analyzing the results, over the first round

As we examined, analyzed, critiqued, re-examined the results over our first round (a bottle of wine), one of our teammates typed a few of the fastest-time names into Google.  Sure enough, top results included Wikipedia profiles, World Cup finishes, the Olympics, etc.

We sat in awe as the winners of the '250 and beyond' age category were awarded - that would be an average age of 62.5 for each team member.  The winning team definitely exemplified 'beyond', but all still slim, trim, fit, standing tall (no stooping with these folks!!), dressed nice, and just overall amazing.  They beat our team time by 10 minutes.  And were only 2 1/2 minutes behind the overall winners.

We stood in awe and clapped as the oldest female and male participants were honoured - 87 and 91 respectively.  Mr. 91, sir, beat all of our times.  And that included missing the last gate and hiking back up to go through it (to avoid being disqualified).  And yes, he was wearing a skin suit.

We didn't finish last.  And over our second round (a bottle of wine), we toasted and clanked glasses - equivalent to a handshake - to each knock 1 minute or more off our times for next year.  I secretly signed up for 2 minutes.

Clouds and rainbows

Bittersweet.  That was the first word to come to mind when the much-anticipated, but much-dreaded, official job offer came.

Tomorrow, as they say, is the first day of the rest of my life.  It will have been 530 days since the last day I actually worked (before starting my sabbatical), 347 days of being unemployed (after ending my sabbatical, and losing my job), and 286 days of job hunting (after taking the summer off to play).

The bitter part is about the end of an experiment with freedom.  During this experiment, I was free to get up each day whenever I felt like.  I was free to choose anything I wanted to do each day, with or without Colin.  I was free to go to bed each night whenever I felt like.  I was completely in charge of me and my time, reporting to no one.  I was free.  Bitter is perhaps rather harsh - the feeling is more of a nostalgic sadness.

The sweet part is about the work on which I am about to embark.  Starting the hunt at the beginning of September last year, I contacted 47 people, passed out 22 resumes, and attended 21 meetings or interviews.  In a small handful of those, I discovered something that could make me excited, and people I could potentially be happy to work with.  And of that handful, only one job was "right up my alley", as many of my friends have commented - the one I am about to start.

I did not receive a single interview from resumes submitted to online job posts.  I received only one courtesy PFO from those online submissions.  It was like I clicked submit, and off the bits and bytes flew, disintegrating into the deep void of suspended bits and bytes from all those lost emails and submissions that never made it through to reassembly at destination.  As for the actual meetings and interviews, nearly all were a result of a contact initiated through friends, friends of Colin's, or myself.  Except one.

Remember another experiment, where I hand delivered a resume?  Earlier in March this year, I printed off a copy of my resume, along with a note, and personally dropped it off at a place in which I was very interested.  That, my friends, is what led to this bittersweet moment.

Cracks on the Trail

Is it bad etiquette to swear out loud on the trail during a race?  I'm thinking the bad energy disturbs the other animals, both four-legged and two.  Probably wilts some greenery in its wake.  Unfortunately, it is a bit of an innate Tourette's-like reaction that can shoot out when I am focused.  It happens in the kitchen too, for example when I am making a masterpiece (ie. my lunch), and put an ingredient back in the fridge before I've actually used it, my concentration temporarily wandering off or worse, interrupted.

So when, during the first half of the "Survival of the Fittest" race this past weekend (Coast Mountain Trail Series), I rounded a bend to see the trailway to heaven continuing on up into the clouds, and not tipping over to a downward angle like the map in my head said it should (it had been going up for hours), I couldn't stop the "OH FOR F*** SAKE!!".  It just shot out.  I looked behind me - I had just displayed a crack of weakness in my I-am-tough armour, and hoped none of the stalwart trail warriors around me had heard the crack.

I popped a reserve sugar chewy thingy into my mouth, normally saved for near the end, soon happy again in time for the rowdy downhill.

The assumption is: everyone else out there is tough as nails.  I imagine a regimented hard-core training program which involves uphill sprints onto overhanging trails, all-nighter long runs into trail-less bush by light of the moon only, sprints pulling boulders - not tires - roped behind, and weight training that would shame an Olympic weight-lifter athlete.  So that means, for everyone else this must be a jog in the park, and I am certain they are lovin' it.  And not swearing.

Even the volunteers stationed along the course - happy, smiling, cheering and seemingly unaffected by the steady rain and cold air - are tough.  So I had to smile back, salute, wave, banter, pretending this was great fun for all of us.  All of which, incidentally, made it quite fun again, my armour suddenly all shiny.

About three quarters of the way through the race, on yet another climb, I began losing control of the cracks.  I was heading up the steepest prolonged climb, the trail like a river, me without a paddle.  It was now more a series of mad dance steps around fearsome bottomless puddles and thick mud than running.  A few more f-bombs.  The rain of the past 24 hours had caused a sudden surge in brush growth that morning, and the soggy-leafed branches hanging into the trail whacked my face again and again.  More f-bombs.

I popped a second sugar chewy thingy as the climb angle lessened (but still climbed), and regained some cheeriness.  Allowed a small smile even - I can beat you, you bonking blood sugars RARRR!  I passed, then put some space between, those two people I kept shuffling order with.

A branch suddenly tore my number from all but one safety pin. BIG FAT F-BOMB laced with religious iconery (why is that so much more powerful, in cultures and languages all over the world??).  If I lost my number, I was hooped - no timing chips.  Pulling over, I ignored my disintegrating armour as my two nemesises passed me by, and fumbled with frozen, dripping-gloved fingers and swears to get at least one pin back in through the torn number.

Hunting down my nemesises, I caught them both on one last slap-dap-happy two-step down the slime.  Weeeee!  Alas, I could only keep one at bay as my empty legs barely sputtered up the last hill to the finish.

Mind's view of the Race Course profile - yes, physically
strange how the Finish was at much higher elevation
than the Start, even though they were one  and the same...

I didn't cry until I was through the finish line, past the people, and had begun hyperventilating - that huge relief-cry that occasionally follows Type II fun.  I don't think I have ever been so physically and mentally spent after a run.  My armour in tattered pieces, I had no shame.

We pick our battles.  On the one hand, Squamish really is paradise, with out-your-front-door access to almost anything you like to do.  Recreating is easy here, in as many things as you can fit into a day.  But people in Squamish are tough, driven, and train hard.  And that's for the things they do for fun.  If you want to compete, them's the minimum standards.

As my dad likes to say, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed (wo)man is queen/king" (I paraphrase).  There are very few blind people here.

Driving myself home, rain streaming down my windshield (for added tragic effect), I lamented my +30-minutes finish time over the female winner, plus not finishing in under 2 hours like I had "planned".  Then I thought of my brother-in-law, a mountain bike racer for many years.  He used to get so mad at recreationist racers who, seeing their results compared to the top finishers, were sad and hard on themselves. "Open your eyes you eedjits!!", he'd rant, "We're not born this good, we work and train our asses off!!"

Hmmm.  Respect.

Dickie Dee

There is an ice cream truck in Squamish...!

I don't think I've seen a mobile ice cream anything since I was a kid in Edmonton.  And back then, the only engine mobilizing the ice cream was the pedalling capacity of the person rolling it along.

Photo from CBC article: Dickie Dee ice cream bike circa 1959 

While the fellow in the photograph (right) is from 1959, other than a few more flavours, updated decals, and some modernized bike parts, this is exactly what it was when I was kid in the 1980s.  Minus the hat and jacket too.

What kid, who was fortunate enough to be in a town or city where there were Dickie Dee ice cream bikes, does not know that magic jingly-bell sound?  Regardless of the enthusiasm of the vendor pedalling the bike, the rocking bells on the handle bar were an irrefutable message: ice cream!  Incidentally, I learned from a recent CBC article that Dickie Dee was actually a Canadian icon, born in Winnipeg, MB in 1959, rolling its fame country-wide and into northern US before being sold off in 1992, and alas folding completely in 2002.

The ice cream truck coming up my road did not have any jingly bells, but instead repeated 'The Music Box Dancer' tune on its loudspeaker.  Even without the bells, my first reaction upon hearing it, for I knew instantly what it must be before I saw it, was one of sharp nostalgia - great memories of just being a kid.  Not specific memories, but an aura of those simple summer days, romanticized through age into the meaning of life, stress-free innocence and happiness.

Immediately followed a pang of sadness.  Would kids today appreciate the great childhood experience of something as simple and tangible as mobile ice cream at their doorstep on a hot summer day?  Would the poor driver meander his way through the neighbourhood streets, ignored, sad and lonely, braking as the tumbleweeds rolled by, while children sat, oblivious, in air-conditioned rooms playing with digital things?

Nevertheless, just like when I was a kid, hearing the distinct jingle of those ice cream bells, I dropped everything.  I must have been lost in my reverie for longer than I thought, for the truck was already past the house by the time I grabbed my wallet and ran outside.  Ah, but he had to come back this way.  I fetched my book from the house, and posted myself out front for his return.

Every minute or two, the fading tune of 'The Music Box Dancer' would stop mid-bar for a moment, then would start up again from the beginning.  At long last, the tune grew louder again, coming back down my road.  I raced out to the street and waved.  The truck stopped, the music stopped mid-bar for a moment while we chatted and I picked out an ice cream each for Colin and I, then started up again from the beginning as he moved off down the road.  In a few seconds, three children ran up to the side of the road and waved him down - the music stopped mid-bar...

The ice cream man told me when we were chatting that he had the best job ever.  As he pulled away from the three children, one of them called out "Thank you so much Mr. Ice Cream Man!".

Truth and Fiction

Truth:  The Coast Mountains are NOT the Rocky Mountains.

It does not typically drop to -25 C at night.  In April, it seems, you can ski in a t-shirt if it weren't for the fry-factor coming from both the sun and reflected off the snow.  Which explains all those more-than-one-day trips in the guide book - why wouldn't you want stay out there??

The sun is warm, the snowpack is stable, the glaciers well filled in, the sunsets glorious, the stars plentiful, and the early mornings chilly but quite bearable.  Even the socked-in fog is alright, once you get moving.

I was heartened by the irony right from the start of the "Length: 1-3 days" ski tour:

For three days, my friend and I followed the Spearhead Traverse, beginning from the top of Blackcomb, skiing a horseshoe around the head of the Fitzsimmons drainage, camping on glaciers, ending with a long ski down to the last remnants of slush at the base of Whistler.  And a beer.

Fiction:  The made-up stuff in your head.

Funny that the reality outside your head is what is stranger...

Another group on a similar mission