Fight

During the cooldown after a hard L5 workout up at Hatcher Pass Ellis called me over to where he was standing. He'd come across an ermine and a squirrel fighting in the snow. Maybe it's more properly called a weasel, or a stoat, I'm not sure. The loop up there isn't too big so it only took a couple of minutes before the rest of our teammates stepped off alongside us as the straggled past on their cooldown. It didn't take us very long to asses the situation and determine that the ground squirrel was not in a good place. Carnivore vs herbivore is never good for the herbivore. We spent probably a good five minutes of our cooldown ski watching this fight. After all, I hardly ever see an ermine, much less one that's going after a supply of food for the winter. I decided that I wasn't as much of a fan of ermine as I thought I was. I no longer think of them as "cute." We watched until it was pretty clear there was no hope for the squirrel.

Erik and Jeff said they skied by later and the ground squirrel was STILL putting up a fight.

Did I fight that hard in my intervals that morning? Nope. Do I fight that hard in races? Nope. I'd like to think I do but I know I don't. I get in this zone of complacency thinking that I'm working really hard and striving to do my best and pushing my limits. I think I know what it means to fight. I don't think of myself as a quitter but I know there's been races where I've figured out the outcome and quit pushing. I'm not proud of that but I can't deny it either. This squirrel probably figured out the outcome but he did not stop fighting. Even when the weasel was ready to drag him away for a food stash he was fighting back. After watching the two rodents battle I had to ask myself if I knew what it meant to really fight for something. To struggle with every ounce of my being to some goal. I don't. I'm not sure if you can know it unless you actually have to fight for your life (or something equally important). What I will remember from this glimpse into the rest of the natural world is that there are many, many levels of fight above what I'm producing. As hard as I think I'm fighting... I can fight harder.

Skiing.

Today was one of those priceless sunny and calm days at Glenn Alps. There was fresh snow covering everything; it looked like an artist's nightmare (although maybe real artists are more optimistic about depicting snowscapes). Being aware that it could be my last ski up to Powerline Pass of the year without fighting a monstrous headwind I was loath to turn around. So I didn't. I kept skiing.

I skied passed the point where my girls team turned around, passed the point where my boys team turned around, passed where Dylan's tracks turned back, along a faded track from before last night's snowfall, until those tracks too stopped to make an asterisk in the snow and disappeared into themselves for their return path. I skied through the sparkling and untouched snow, passed chortling ptarmigans, a few of whom the winter white seemed to have caught by surprise. I skied over snow dunes and among plebeian shrubs looking regal in their ermine fur coats. Although enjoying the sun rise over the mountains I skied before the dawn into the shadows at the very base of Powerline Pass. I skied into five runs of (admittedly very bad) tele turns and through seven layers of kick wax. I prayed to stay ahead of the cloud of snow dust licking up the legs of my shadow as I descended the upper valley. I skied into the whispered, hissing conversation between my skis as they returned to smoother tracks without interrupting them. It was a day to rekindle my passion for skiing.

The Glenn Alps parking lot.
Ky Eiben waiting for a calf to follow mother moose across the trail.

The APU team in the lower left corner heading home.

Doing math with Dallas Price's Pre-Algebra class at Rogers Park Elementary in Anchorage.

I finally get it

"And what are you studying/did you study in school?"
"Math"
"Oh," [pause & blank stare] "so do you want to teach?"

After getting this question so frequently I was probably more anti-teaching than if I wasn't forced to say, "no, I'm really not interested in being a teacher" over and over again. I really appreciated my teachers and professors but I was certain that I didn't have the patience to coax the painfully ignorant students (as I often was) into enlightenment in one subject after another. Teaching seemed to me near the bottom of the list of desirable professions. Even after volunteering all last school year at Sand Lake I still thought that teaching seemed way too arduous for the benefits and I was completely satisfied with my 1-2 hours in the afternoons.

Then, sometime this fall I finally got it. I finally got a teacher's high. I remember coming away from class one day feeling like I'd improved the world. (Just a little tiny bit, but still...) I realized that teaching could be totally fulfilling and uplifting and a worthwhile use of my time. Don't get me wrong, I still doubt I'd cut it as a teacher and it's not in the career plan, but now at least I understand why people love teaching. Why one of my brilliant friends would struggle through two years of teaching math in inner city Las Vegas instead of getting a PhD and earning fame and money (although she did pick up a Masters degree, I was serious about the brilliant descriptor). I am so glad that I'm getting this exposure to teaching through In The Arena... I think the perspective's been good for me and it's been good to realize that the value of having a challenging and fulfilling career matters way more than the paycheck.

Joy

In Elizabeth Gilbert's book "eat, pray, love" one of her friends insists that every city has a word:

Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be-- that is the word of the city. (pg 103)

Of course, being a book about self-discovery, this discussion quickly leads to what Liz's word is.

Of couse, being rather self-reflective myself, this quickly led myself to ponder what my word is. Although, being a greedy reader I kept reading and merely stored the question for future consideration. Then on my run this afternoon I had the answer. JOY. It probably wasn't my word a couple of weeks ago and it might not be my word next week either, but for right now it's the best word for my life.

When I ask myself, "why am I doing this?" it's for the joy of it. Why am I rollerskiing? Because it brings me joy. Why am I doing one activity or another? Joy. There was a strong wind tonight and I can tell it's bringing winter to the Chugiak. And that brings me joy. Running this afternoon I was joyful simply to be out and capable of running. This morning I spent 2hrs with Dallas Price's 6th grade class (well, technically an hour with her Pre-Algebra class and an hour with her homeroom class). After math class one of the boys came up radiating excitement as he told me, "that was so cool!" I assured him that stuff got even cooler in higher mathematics. He asked if he could also expand (x+y)^7 (I'd encouraged them to try (x+y)^6 on their own and he had already done it) and I told him to "do it" but if you'd listened to the tone of the exchange rather than the words you would have thought we were talking about something way more trendy than math such as "I'd like to hit this sick jump, I'm pretty sure I could do it but it might be too big for me, should I try it?" "do it." I had shared some of my joy in mathematics with this boy and that made today even more joyful.

Obviously, I expect you to try to pick your own word at this point :)

The Olympics are over and school's starting!

First, be sure and check out Mike Hazle's recap of his Olympic experience for a very good perspective on competition for any athlete at any level.

Second, school started again here in the Anchorage on August 20th and my community service projects are back in full swing! I'm continuing to work at Sand Lake in the afternoons, this year with Mr. Maurer's 6th grade class. I've also followed the teacher with whom I worked last year, Dallas Price, to her new 6th grade class at Rogers Park Elementary. While I will have specific home room classes at both these schools I'm hoping to get to work with all of the 6th graders over the year. I already got to meet all of the Rogers Park 6th graders since they invited me to be a guest speaker for their first day convention. My class at Sand Lake is a hugely diverse group of students and I'm pretty excited to get to know them better.

Training

These last two weeks of training have been my favorite so far. Make that three if I include this week of recovery. The first week was in town mostly on rollerskis, the second week was on the glacier skiing for seven days and the third week is back home not thinking at all about training and enjoying the other aspects of life. Our hard weeks have been low volume this cycle but high intensity. I've never felt so confident in my training before. We train hard and we train specifically. I know my coaches think about our training and have an overarching scheme for the training and racing season to get us in the best shape possible. I also trust their eyes on my technique and know that they know how to decipher what they see me doing differently than what my perfect technique should look like. It's a very worry-free way to train. All I have to do is to train hard when I'm supposed to and work on my technique while I'm skiing. And then I get this week of not-really-training to enjoy life totally guilt free because I know the next five weeks are going to be another set of tough training.