Clown racing

And that was my second of two missed starts in 2009. It may have even been the same guy firing the starting gun. He wasn't looking, so maybe he didn't know it was me both times when I went by.

In the second case, by the time I got my skis on the Bear Chase leaders and many other skiers had pulled away, needless to say. I was uncomfortable with the trail conditions as the classic tracks were lightning fast. I had to be so careful not to fall for reasons I'll detail later.

My clown show actually began at home a week before the race. Living alone, anything goes including waxing skis in the vinyl floored kitchen. The floor got really slick. The nearby basement steps are wood. With one sore shoulder, I sleepily headed downstairs to the bedroom in stocking feet. You can guess the rest.

Now with two sore shoulders, I arrived in Chassell with the wrong wax for the Bear Chase. The crew at Cross Country Sports in Calumet helped me find a better wax. Then out at the Swedetown chalet, someone put that stuff called Klister on my skis for me.

The race itself was a fairly routine tour. I eventually let it rip down after starting out cautiously. I had to pass a fallen skier on that tough, icy uphill coming out of Powderhouse. My shoulders were so sore I would have been useless trying to assist him, which I normally would have. At the finish I walked back to the school, thus taking first and last in the self-inflicted duathlon.

Now, about that earlier race. It was the 2009 Noquemanon that finishes in Marquette, Michigan. I did almost everything right prepping for the race. The shoulder, sore since December 2008, withstood a few days of training in the Cable, Wisconsin, area. But then I got on new classic race skis. Actually, I may have banked only three hours on them prior to my trip up to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But the Rock Lake trail had treated me and them to perfectly fast glide. I aced the tough stuff on the 11K loop on the last day there.

The cabin I stayed in at Au Train looked over the river as snow fell. It was also blowing kind of hard so I did not ski. It's a long trip out there from the Superior Dome in downtown Marquette, but cabin life on the river was deluxe. After picking up my race packet in Marquette, I headed back to the cabin. Neither the snow nor the wind had let up any. All I could "see" was why no one else was out driving around like me. It was a relief to reach that light at the intersection in Au Train and head inland.

On race day, I woke up without the alarm. I went about things as usual and then looked at the clock. My shuttle bus was scheduled to roll from the Superior Dome in 30 minutes. I was 45 minutes away and lollygagging, forgetting that my watch was still set for Central Time. Realizing that, I just hoped race officials would allow me to start in whatever wave was leaving when I finally arrived.

At the dome, I grabbed my gear. I'll put the ski boots on in the bus, I thought. An extra pair of dry gloves would be worth carrying. But I found only three gloves. And the skis, which had two slide on binders yesterday, have just one today. So I look like a starfish on legs walking to the bus. I was the last one aboard, so I took a cold seat near the front. I was wishing then I had had more than plain water to drink at the dome.

Up at Al Quaal, I managed to miss the start of the touring class wave as I applied more grip wax. "Touring" or no, those skiers made the best of the 20-second head start I gave them. They must have included aspiring racers, because I saw very few of them after that. I was skiing alone until skiers in the subsequent waves passed me.

There is no official time for me since I did not know what a timing chip was. I never took. But on the course, I learned some lessons about skiing and waxing. I had more than seven hours to list my mistakes, after all.

There was a third race, the inaugural Sisu Ski Fest in Ironwood, Michigan, where I also made a clown of myself. The night before I woke up hourly but never quite enough to figure out the source of the dripping water. I later discovered my hydration pack hose had popped off, leaving its contents on the rug.

My fellow athletes left me behind immediately, to which I was growing accustomed. On the second downhill at ABR, I went off the trail head first into the snow. Contemplating the situation, I started laughing. What do I look like from the trail, I wondered. Climbing out of my hole, I soon realized that my fall had resulted in enough damage to end my race just over 4K into the 42K event.

Noquemanon 2010 was just weeks away, though, and I had entered the touring class again. I was still in bad shape from the crash at Sisu and simply not ready to ski 51K, so I switched to the Half Noque.

Then at registration, I scratched completely, too sore to race. I was given a bib anyway and dejectedly packed it away. I went to the Northern Michigan Wildcats hockey game. A thrilling game dampened somewhat my the regret for my "did not show" at the starting line of the Noque.

After the game, I headed to my cabin in Harvey. This racing thing was just not working, I thought. If I could get my hydration pack to cooperate, I could ski long distances without risking embarrassment. But this clown sheds no tears. In fact, I can only laugh looking back at my recent race history.

At the cabin I loaded the wood stove and watched the moon rise through the maple trees. There's another hockey game on the radio. Chassell has fresh snow and I'm there to enjoy it for two days. So even without racing, the trip went well.

Later I took a look in my race packet and pulled out my bib. I looked at the number I wouldn't wear the next day, and I roared: 1313.