So many good things: Family, Racing, Believing, and Fried Eggs

            It’s the day after Christmas, I’m at home and thoroughly enjoying the presence of my biological family (but missing my ski family). My mom, brothers, and I just shoveled a few inches of fresh powder off the driveway. The sky is a pale pink color and everything glitters in the light of the setting sun. This break has been so much of what it should be; with lots of time to relax (and play video games with my brothers which is relaxing despite the loud bangs and explosions), fun with the family, good food, cooking, baking, and just enough snow to ski on (something rare for this time of year here in Massachusetts). Still, even in all of this splendor, I think many would agree with me when I say that I’m ready to get racing!

Last weekend’s race was such a tease, preceded by a note from Sylvan reminding us of what it means to believe and followed by an inspiring post by Britta; it has left me thinking about the passion we all feel for skiing, the way it brings us all together, and the positive influence of a strong and dedicated team.

Those of us here in the East had quite a day at Craftsbury. It was cold, wet, and definitely fun (although the second race was cancelled due to the weather). Chewy and Lucas made our skis rocket ships and coached us through a great day of racing where we ended up skiing the sprint course upwards of five times. For a few of us it was our first time racing in the heats, which meant that we needed some good advice on warm ups and tactics and I at least, needed Lucas’ calming presence to remind me that qualifying isn’t anything to loose your head about. Which brings me to some sports-psych stuff and the topic of believing.

The night before the race Lucas and Chewy asked who would make the heats the next day, we all raised our hands although some of us more tentatively than others. I don’t know about the others in the group, but I was mostly raising my hand because I wanted to qualify and I knew that confidence is a key component of racing fast. Deep down inside though, I couldn't honestly say that I was confident that I would qualify for the rounds. I tried, but I just couldn’t. I asked myself afterwards if this mentality hampered my performance, it may have, but I don’t know if it did. I thought about Sylvan’s words in an email to the team, “Anyone who has skied for more than a year competitively has the ability to change their ability just by tweaking their mentality (i.e. believing in yourself).” I turned these words over and over in my head and finally, I realized that he said, “believing in yourself,” not, “believing in the result.” It occurred to me, that I honestly believed and felt completely confident that I would go out race as fast as I could. I believed in myself and I believed in my ability, even though I wasn’t sure what the result of that would be, and this made all the difference. 

Anyway, after that ramble I will give you some results. The menz at the Eastern Cup were as follows; Connor (32), Nate (84), Emmet (89) in a field of just over 200. The women at the Eastern Cup were; Hallie (8), Jane (12), Britta (22), Gracie (33), Sadie (55) in a field of just over 150. At the Crested Butte Solstice Showdown Wade Rosko was 17^th. And congrats to Laurel, who won the Tennenbaum 10km Classic and beat her mom for the first time in a ski race (by 9 seconds)! I don’t have any more results for you, the other bobcats did time trials and intervals last weekend, so rest assured that we’re getting prepped and revving our engines for racing season!

Much love and happy skiing,

Jane

And here are some photos:

Laurel and Filly

Eggs on the new fry pan!

The cookies I baked and painted

The Tao of Skiing/Finals

Hello World! I am pleased to report that all the Bates Nordic Bobcats have clawed their way through another tough finals week and emerged on the other side, bright eyed and bushy tailed, into the wonderful world of vacation. It is easy to move on to leaving tracks on the trails instead of butt-imprints on the library chairs and chew marks on our pencils, but, if you chew hard enough, it seems that learning and skiing go together! Synergy!

Here we go: For my final paper for an Education class. I chose to write about Humanism and its role in teaching. As I started reading different humanist psychologists, I realized they were articulating something I had been thinking about with my skiing for a long time. Abraham Maslow in particular seems to really be a nordic skier in disguise. In his book Towards a Psychology of Being, he writes about how people sometimes think the primary human goal is to get rid of all of our "needs" and achieve instead an "state of rest," "equilibrium," or "lack of pain," and towards a state of not wanting. In this way, we motivated by deficiencies towards a state of "not wanting."

                                         Filly's Movember mustache is actually a Maslow imitation

However, being motivated by our deficits and merely coping with what is thrown at us is not the right way to be living. Maslow talks instead about being "growth motivated." This is not "goal oriented." It is a state where the goal and the result are synonymous. When we define things in terms of goals, we tend to consider an endpoint which justifies the means, but instead, Maslow suggests that we should live like children who find, but do not search. We are not "preparing to live, we are living," we are being, not becoming.

So how does all this psychobabble about a dead guy relate to skiing? My boy Maslow says "We don't do it because it is good for us (we don't do it for the muscles), because psychologists (Becky) approve, because it is good for the species (because it makes us popular,) or because it brings external rewards (bragging rights,/cash money) we do it for the same reason we pick one dessert over another, choose to kiss one person over another." The easy thing to get from this is that we are not skiing for the results. But what was more interesting to me was how it influenced my idea of racing. When I reflect on my best races, they are not the ones that hurt the most. I was not pushing, I was not "coping with the pain," I was not grimacing. Like the child Maslow suggests, I found the results but did not search for them. It is very similar to the Taoist idea of "effortless action." We have been training for years to ski fast, we want to ski fast, and the next step, it seems, is just to let ourselves ski fast. It is glamorous to think that the person that tries the hardest wins the race, but in fact, it is really just the person that skis the fastest-and often that person is relaxed and released from any dichotomy of mind and body, process and result.

                                             Despite what it looks like, this was not a great race. See why above.

So, after a long finals week during which I unfortunately wrote more pages than I skied kilometers, I at least came away with some sweet skiing related knowledge, the ability to use dichotomy in a sentence and at least 4 hours procrastinating by looking at pictures of Maslow's mustaches.

Keep your eyes out for an action packed recap from Jane about actual racing and snow!!!

Thanks for reading! Go Bobcats!
Britta

P.S. If you aren't interested in reading this whole blog post, here is a summary via Pooh Bear.

“To know the way, 
we go the way, 
we do the way.
The way we do,
the things we do,
it's all there in front of you.
But if you try too hard to see it,
you'll only become confused.
I am me and you are you.
As you can see; 
but when you do 
the things that you can do, 
you will find the way.
The way will follow you.” 
    -The Tao of Pooh

HOME STRETCH

HOME STRETCH

Hey there!  Things are going in full gear here at Bates. We’ve had some great training since we’ve been back from Canada. Tuesday offered some specific strength back on roller skis. It was a bummer to be back on the pavement rather than the crisp white corduroy of Foret, but it was great training nonetheless. On Wednesday we had a killer set of intervals at Lost Valley- a bit of snow and ice on the trail added a whole new element to the game. Shout out to Nate for absolutely crushing the intervals, even without Sean there to keep pace with him. On Friday Becky surprised us with a much-needed stress relieving game of speedball in the Grey Cage. It was awesome!! Saturday capped off a great week with some level four skate roller skiing intervals at Pineland. We were all pretty tired from hard studying and training all week, but we all definitely showed how deep we could dig by putting up some great times during the intervals.

Now it’s time to dig deep academically and rock the socks off of finals week. After that we all get to head home! Here we go Bobcats.

Mustaches: Gone but not forgotten

Reminiscent of some great football in Canada. Here's Filly with a great one handed snag

SOON TO COME, a Freshman Feature of the Sixpack:

Wade “F.” Rosko

Henry “Alaska” Loeffler

Max “Random Trivia” Millslagle

Ben “Big Foot” Pratt

Nate “Silent but Deadly” Moreau

and myself, Emmett “I’m so Vermont I sweat grade A maple syrup” Peterson

All the best,

Emmett