Skiing is Believing

This is what finishing a Birkie looks like.

Olympians,

As we celebrate the arrival of spring, we have a few winter events in the books, three on ongoing and two upcoming.

Index:

Invite: Shot Put

Invite: Big Air

Invite: Mountain Biking

Just Finished: Cross-country Skiing

Just Finished: Alpine Skiing

Invite/Update: Pickleball

Honorable Mention: 50km Run

INVITE! Athletics XV: Shot Put (4kg)

Mark your calendars for the evening of May 1st! We'll be playing hardball behind the HPDP at the Tuba City Regional Healthcare Center. All ages welcome, and you can attend even if you don't want to throw. But hopefully you will throw, and throw like a girl even, because we're using the women's Olympic regulation weight shot. The distance to beat is Paris' worst Olympian: Éva Kürti of Hungary who threw a mere 14.6m. We'll be having a pot luck picnic considerably away from the throwing area as safety is our top priority. Start time: 6pm.

INVITE! Freestyle Skiing I: Big Air

There's a little bit of ski season left to send in up to three videos of your best tricks you can manage on the biggest jump you can find, or are comfortable with. So far, Artski and Gustave found a jump with an impressive two foot gap between the lip and knuckle to throw themselves off for the camera at Elm Creek, Minnesota. Where will you go big?

INVITE! Cycling: Cross-country Mountain Biking II

While the first iteration of Our Olympics mountain biking was four years ago, it was a brief affair with finishing times coming in around ten minutes on a 1.5 mile course. If you watched in Paris, you'd know the Olympians toiled for nearly an hour and a half and put on around 20 miles. We're aiming for the middle of that for our next participation event*: the Monument Valley Mountain Bike Race on June 28th. It's a 13 mile course with gravel, sand, dirt, and the main climb right at the end. Join Katrina, Gustave, and Luke as we take on the best bikers from across the Rez (and maybe take more time to enjoy the views than overtake other racers)! Race info

*hosted by Navajo YES

"Just" Finished: Cross-country Skiing II: 50km Classical (53km)

What was supposed to be yet another endurance challenge taken up by Katrina and Gustave, things took a turn when Katrina started having symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) two weeks before the event. She responded well to treatment, but wasn't all the way back to moving properly by race day and postponed her first Birkie. This left Gustave as the only athlete from Our Olympics giving the American Birkebeiner (sometimes known as Wisconsin's biggest adventure) a try, at least in the classical division. The race lived up to its reputation, with a rollicking course, changing conditions, over 1500 racers skiing classical, and a roaring crowd at the finish on Hayward's Main Street. Gustave's goal was just to make it to the finish before sunset/closing time at 6pm, but his alpine skiing skills propelled him up the hills in herringbone form and down the other sides in daring tucks to make up for his slipping micro-steps on slight uphills and unrefined form elsewhere in the course. At 4pm, Gustave crossed the finish, setting a respectable time for anyone who hadn't skied more than 10km straight before!

Just finished: Alpine Skiing II: Super G, Giant Slalom, and Slalom

By a stroke of good luck, Our Olympics rolled into La Crosse just in time for the Mt. La Crosse Championships, one of the only times of the year the public can enter in organized downhill skiing races in disciplines other than Giant Slalom. While GS races are held all over the country by NASTAR with nominal entry fees, the courses are often uncomplicated and short. However, this Championship featured more involved courses for super G (a faster and longer course version than GS), slalom (a tighter and shorter course using single gates without flags), and even GS. This is the pinnacle of the racing season for the local race team kids under high school age, but it also draws a few high-schoolers, former racers, adult (beer) league racers, and the racing curious to enter as well. Categorized as a participation event for Our Olympics, a good number of friends are listed in the results and represent a sizeable percentage of the total racers. We could almost have called our subset the Sexauer Cup!

Race Highlights

Super G was first, affectionately called "Big G" by the same folks still running the races that did it when Gustave was in high school (Cindy and Bill). It required hiking to the summit of Mt. La Crosse and waiting in line for 45 minutes, unless you were Artski because the elders went first and he almost missed his group. Those in their 20s and 30s were last to start, and also numbered few, unlike the stacked field of minors. Artski put in a respectable time, but was then surpassed by his nephew Jeff by a quarter second. Then Jeff was outdone by his own daughter, who took off the better part of three seconds with a time of 39.04s. Finally, Artski 's neighbor and substitute grandchild, Brynn, set the best time for an Our Olympian (10th overall) with a 38.65s run. But the drama wasn't over. Katrina dropped into the course with her best rock skis and navigated the now scraped-out course with the goal of just keeping it together. The starting official didn't take the circumstances into account and sent Gustave down shortly after. Loving being back in the course for the first time in three years, he was eating up the turns with Artski's GS skis tuned to win. But on the approach to the headwall, he saw he was closing in on Katrina and knew they were on a collision course. Gustave backed off on the final gate to make sure and not mess with Katrina's time, botching his own run. To everyone's surprise, Gustave's run was already a scratch out, as the start time wasn't registered. He was offered a rerun and Katrina's run was unaffected and in the books. On his second attempt, Gustave struggled over the headwall and didn't have the glowing run that his first felt like after having run up directly into the starting gate with heart pumping in overdrive.

Next was the Giant Slalom, starting from the Dog House Start. At Mt. La Crosse the difference between "Big G" and Giant Slalom isn't very pronounced and the finishing order was unchanged with the exception of Scott Finch sliding into second just 0.11s behind Brynn who won for Our Olympians with a time of 32.03s.

Finally, the most intimidating race of the day: Slalom. Using one pole instead of two poles with a flag to turn around, the course has the tightest arcs of any in alpine skiing and those with skill regularly punch down the gates to turn over them instead of around them. Many in the master and legend classes (seniors) remarked in trepidation about the number of decades it had been since they had raced slalom. For Katrina, though, the answer was undefined as this was her first time. She couldn't understand why you wouldn't get in the course as we were just here on this sunny and warm day to goof off while skiing on a little hillside in a river valley. Artski set the pace, or attempted to when he skied out of the course halfway down. Jeff hooked a gate in the same spot and rumbling discourse among the racers at the top  posited that that gate was set too narrow for good racing. Gustave grabbed Jeff's poles (with hand guards) and showed them how you can actually stay in the course. Katrina kept her dull skis in the lines and made the finish, too. In the end, Scott put in a respectable time for second, but again Brynn took the cake for Our representation with a time of 20.75s!

The day of racing was lustrous, but even more so when we found out later that night when Patrick, Brynn's father, brought Katrina her bronze medal. She had placed third overall in the female 21-34 age group!

Ongoing: Pickleball Singles and Doubles

There's been some stagnation and confusion regarding the two ongoing long term pickleball events, so to aid in explanation, here are breakdowns of both tournaments. Note that competitors are responsible for arranging their games on their own time. Optimally, we will build out the fourth (Ohio) group with a group of four people that can easily play each other.

 Honorable Mention: 50km Ultramarathon

Let's check in with Janos Arnosky, who completed a 50 kilometer run for the first time a couple of months ago. Here's his story:

Cold Turkey: My First 50K  (Also the Way My Legs Felt the Next Day)

    Way back in November 2024, at the spry age of 33 years old, I developed what I can only describe as an abrupt and sudden overconfidence in my abilities.  My go-to form of excitement is the 5k run.  I love the distance and everything it provides:  a good fast heart rate when run fast, a good sweat if it’s summertime outside, and just short enough that you can run them nearly every day without your body complaining too much.  As an airline pilot for my day job,  I’ve run 5k’s all over the place. From my highest on the snowshoe trails at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, Oregon to my deepest running through an abandoned mine shaft in Guanajuato, Mexico.  They are great fun and a great way to explore the world on the move.  This, however, is a story of my 50k run. Just a little bit longer than a 5k, right?  That’s what 2024 Janos Arnosky believed.  Oh buddy!

    It all started when my good friend Josh convinced me to come visit him in Santa Barbara, California to take on our first half marathon in November ‘24.   Neither of us had ever run that distance and we accepted the challenge with vigor.  Now, 10 weeks prior and we were off to the races with training programs downloaded from google images when we searched “best half marathon training plans”.  The start was great and my Texan mind couldn’t comprehend how beautifully cool the air felt coming off the ocean as we ran down Shoreline drive. Halfway through the race and I was feeling better than my best day of training.   Confidence was building as the miles ticked by, at least for me.  My friend, however, was starting to look a little grim as he continuously pounded energy gels at the aid stations.     

    Next thing I knew I was feeling on top of the world having just completed my first half marathon under the two hour time goal I had set for myself.  Never-mind that I had just abandoned my running partner at mile 12 as his body returned all those energy gels to a very unlucky patch of sidewalk.  He was nowhere to be found now and I needed a cup of coffee.   As I sat down in Starbucks with a grande Pike’s Place and a blueberry muffin I did what anyone suffering from acute runners’ high would do: I decided to run a 50k ultramarathon.

    What I should have done next is discount this idea as pure madness.  But having already texted my wife about my 50k hopes and dreams, I found myself a few days later signing up to run the Rocky Raccoon 50k in Huntsville, Texas.   The date: February 7^th, 2025.  Just a few short months away.  Plenty of time.   

    December training went great.  My runs were excellent and I felt right on track to being prepared to run this supposedly “flat and mild beginner’s 50k”.  When January rolled around things changed and quickly.  My wife and I decided to enroll our 17-month old daughter in 3 day/week Montessori school with 12 other amazing kids.  But, unbeknownst to us, the common “daycare cold” decided that our house was a fresh battleground on which to wage a full-scale nuclear war with our immune systems for the next several weeks.   Weeks 1-3 in January consisted of exactly zero running miles and by the start of week 4 I started to get concerned.   Not to be outdone by a simple cold virus, I grabbed my battle worn immune system by its helmet and pulled it out of the foxhole where it had been hiding.  I think it got the picture as my situation rapidly improved and I still had seven full days to go before the race.  “Plenty of time to warm up those muscles” was my new mantra and it gave me a large dose of confidence as race day approached.

    The night before the race we camped at Huntsville State Park and I prepared my body with an incredible high calorie meal.   The menu:  Toas-tite hamburgers made over the fire.  If like many, you have haven’t heard of the Toas-tite sandwich maker, now is the time to get to googling.   Invented in the mid-1940s it is the perfect delivery device for all things delicious and a must have in your camping box.  The blackberry cobbler hand pies my family would make as kids were legendary.  In fact, it was the number one item on my wedding present wish list and the one my parents own is considered a family heirloom.  Having eaten far too many hamburgers it was time for sleep.

    5am arrived much too soon and again food was on my mind.  I knew this 50k would take a lot of energy and I whipped up a batch of chorizo and egg breakfast tacos finishing just in time to make it to the tail end of the pre-race briefing. Next thing I knew I was plodding along on my first ultramarathon.  In those first few minutes I kept having the same thought: us 50k runners are a different weird, man!  Not unlike Comic-Con attendees,  we  dressed up in all manner of ridiculous outfits and many sported numerous tattoos detailing each ultramarathon the runners had completed.  These people were hardcore.  And here I was along side them having run a total of seven days in the month prior.  I felt right in my element and was loving every moment despite my lack of training.

    Miles 1-15 were incredible.  In fact, I was on track to run a sub 4-hour marathon when I crossed the halfway point.  But somewhere shortly after that my body decided that maybe we should pack it in and go home.  Luckily my mind is much too stubborn to listen to that nonsense and we plodded on.  For the next several hours as the sun was beating down at 88 degrees Fahrenheit in February (this is Texas after all) I started to realize that maybe more training would have been a better plan.  Then, out of nowhere in the woods I saw a sign  that said “cold popsicles ahead”. Wait a minute, this wasn’t on my the little sweaty map of the race course I carried in my pocket.  Convinced that it must be a mirage in the desert I stumbled across a man and his wife who had hiked in with a cooler of cold ice-pops.  These trail angels re-energized my spirit and I was once again crushing the miles. 

    At last, seven hours and four minutes after starting out, the finish line finally arrived.  Legs tired, skin burnt to a crisp from the Texas sun, and hydration levels questionable, I had done it.  But the best part of the whole race wasn’t crossing the finish line.  Neither was it the feeling of accomplishment of having just completed 50 kilometers.   The best part was by far a Gatorade slushy someone had just made up in their battery powered blender and handed to me as I crossed the line. For the next 5 minutes I alternated between a state of bliss and intense brain freeze as I gulped as much of it down as I could.  

    This experience has transformed the way I see ultramarathons and ultra runners.  In the past I always viewed ultramarathons as an unattainable achievement reserved for the true elite athletes among us.  Running an ultramarathon was something I could only dream about doing, let alone even attempting.  But in training for this race I began to discover a whole new world of people dedicated to this style of running and how welcoming and encouraging they all were.  Unlike standard marathon runners, many of the ultrarunners I talked to don’t compare race times and boast about “sub 4 hour marathon times”. Ultramarathons don’t allow for that simple metric since each course is different, and more importantly, much more personal to each runner.  Ultrarunning is a challenge to push oneself, not a race against others, and the ultrarunning community showed me so much support and humanity during my run.   Will I be doing another?  Absolutely.  But maybe I’ll start my training program a little earlier next time.

Cheers! - Janos

Hope to see you at the next event!

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-Gustave

Commissioner, Our Olympics