2 1/2 Hours of Skiing = Priceless!

Joy here...You know those old MasterCard ads?  The ones where the price of a series of things would be listed, and then at the end, the final item would be "priceless"?  Well, I feel like we could run an ad like that for our holiday Monday 2 1/2 hour afternoon cross-country ski:

Cross-Country skis, poles, and boots = $1,661
Day Pass to ski in park = $28
An afternoon of skiing = Priceless!

You can see the groomed classic cross-country
ski trails on the left and right hand sides
of the parkway under a gorgeous sky.

A friend of ours used to be a competitive cross country skier, and he grew up in Ottawa and so knows the routes and skiing conditions around here like the back of his hand.  Monday was a statutory holiday (Family Day) in the province of Ontario, so the friend, The Man, and I got in our car before noon as the sun was rising and the temperature with it under a clear blue sky.  We headed to the park where we ride our bikes all summer, waxed up our skis, and headed out to the groomed tracks for a mini-lesson with the friend.

Well, our mini-lesson was actually 2 hours long!  He was good enough to run through a whole host of drills with us, to watch our form, to critique us, and to teach us how to use our poles, how to go up ascents on cross country skis, and finally how to come down hills.  And then he trundled off for an hour of skiing by himself at his own rate and pace, while we practiced the drills some more, and then went to the local cafe to buy him some snacks for spending hours and hours with newbies like us!

The beauty of the park in winter.

I've written before about the winter blahs and how taking up cross country skiing just might be the remedy to the annual onset of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and I can assure you that on Monday morning I was a little ball of stress.  I was grouchy about how I haven't accomplished all the things I want to/need to.  I was stressed about what hangs over my head that needs doing.  I was freaking out about finances and financial planning.  And I was generally feeling like I'm somehow living a life that is out of control and not as productive as I'd like it to be.

Well, after heading out into a beautiful day, where we literally shed layers of our clothing as time passed, I feel like everything was right in the world.  I could feel the sun on my skin, and the sky was an indescribable shade of blue, something that seemed like Barbie's blue eyes or a Malibu swimming pool, but in making those comparisons, it cheapens the aqua purity of the infinite blueness of the sky arching high over our heads but yet somehow seeming so close, you could have, in the words of WWII poet John Gillespie Magee Jr, reached out and "touched the face of God."* It was one of those days where the exhilaration of movement and the endorphin rush of the workout and the natural beauty and the camaraderie all worked in beautiful concert together to create a sense of the sublime, the beyond.

The warm sun keeping us comfortable in the snow.

The hours passed by in a mere moment, and I couldn't believe that I had been out there for 2 1/2 hours by the time we called it quits.  I could have kept on going.  Gone were my worries of the morning.  Gone were my insecurities about my fitness.  Gone were my feelings of inadequacy about my work.  Gone were my frustrations about there not being enough time in the day.  Gone were my feelings of hate towards winter.  Suddenly, after spending hours out there moving my body, finally feeling the rhythm of the skis gliding and my body being able to "kick" and get power, I no longer felt like my world was closing in around me.  And as that weight lifted, I looked to the Man and we both agreed that getting out there to ski in the winter, just like getting out there to cycle in the summer, is an important part of our physical and mental health.  I felt like I had plugged in my waning batteries and had them fully recharged, and now I'm totally juiced up and ready to go.

And I've got a friend and a husband, and a beautiful park that lies there on our doorstep just waiting for me, to thank for it.

And so, I say to you, THANK YOU, and thank you, and thank you again.

Over and out,
Joy

*The quotation is taken from the poem "High Flight," which can be found online here, with a little bit of info about the author.