My Surprising Addiction
No, it’s not a food and neither is it an illegal substance!
This story is about my love of cross country (XC) skiing. I hope your’e not too disappointed.
Perhaps you wanted to read a story about how I overcame my addiction to sugar or carbohydrates or fast foods. That I had some incredible Aha moment or devastating health crisis that led me to pursue Holistic Nutrition.
Not really, I have always been a healthy living nut and I doubt that that will change any time soon. I’m not that geeky about it, after all I drink wine.
Besides, I’ve seen first hand the devastating affects of food addiction. You can read about that in my blog post, saving my sister’s life with food.
About XC skiing, an activity I was ready to give up not that long ago. I had been XC skiing for years. Living in Alberta with all that snow it just seemed like the right thing to do. Downhill skiing was not appealing; to expensive and too many people on the hills.
I decided I was better suited to XC skiing. I figure if I could walk I could XC ski. Wrong! I spent my time shuffling along the flats (getting nowhere), falling on the down hills and slipping and sliding (mainly backwards) on the uphills. No one told me that XC ski trails had hills. I thought the terrain would be flat, not some of the time but all of the time.
It was brutal for about 20 years (I know, it’s embarrassing). I took lessons, but they didn’t seem to help much, well maybe my diagonal glide improved slightly on the flats. I have no idea why I persevered for as long as I did.
Being outside in the winter wonderland was appealing to me and very Canadian. I wanted to be part of that experience. And I’m one of those people who likes to finish what I start. I don’t give up on things very easily but you’d think after 20 years……Come on!
My Aha moment came when I said to my husband “you know what, I’ve been doing this for years and I’m just not improving. I think I’ll take up snowshoeing. At least that way I can still enjoy the snow”. He shrugged and said “fine, whatever you want”. I think he was secretly relieved.
I’m not exactly sure when things changed. Maybe when I discovered this beautiful network of trails about 4 years ago close to where I now live in Kelowna, BC. It’s become by far, my favourite place to ski and there are many choices in the area and I have been to most of them.
It seemed relatively undiscovered, with a quaint main cabin at the trail head and a series of cabins through out the trail system. It’s quite lovely, very peaceful, lots of trees and gorgeous vistas and most important many trails for the novice! I couldn’t have been happier, I was there, often. I would ski the easy trails and look on with envy when my husband would take off on one of the more challenging trails. I wanted to go there too.
I once again started to work on improving my ski skills, the herringbone (to get up a hill) and the snow plow (to come down a hill) and of course, the all important diagonal glide. Then magically it seemed to “just happen”.
Not really, it took time on the ski’s and it seems it was the right time and the right place for me. Now that’s an intangible I can’t explain. There is no moral to this story other than sometimes you just have to accept where you are at but also be ready that things can change even when you strongly believe something isn’t possible.
I love this activity, I like that it’s demanding both physically and mentally, I get to enjoy nature, quiet time with myself, the winter season and spending time with like minded people. No matter how I feel when I start out on a trail, the end result is that I feel happy and energized.
And one more thing, I just skied my first 21 Kilometre trail that had a section clearly stating not for novice skiers. I hesitated for a moment. My husband saw my hesitation and turned turned to me and said ” you are no longer a novice, let’s go”. I did it and it was amazing.