What's In A Cowbell?

At 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 2, I was still over one hundred meters from the finish line of the ten-kilometer race. I had left the starting gate nearly two hours earlier, on only my sixth day of cross-country skiing. My left knee and right rib cage were hurting from falls earlier in the week. My right knee was stiffening from a fall around the eight-kilometer mark. Thigh muscles that hadn't been exercised in decades were making their presence known to me. I was gasping from a combination of high altitude and an aerobic workout beyond anything I had tried since going blind. And a thought kept going through my mind - - I had paid good money to feel this way!

How had I gotten here? I had been an avid downhill skier in my younger days, but first life, and then blindness, had kept me off skis for more than a quarter of a century, and I had thought that I would never ski again. Then last fall, due to a chance remark in a casual conversation, I learned about Ski for Light. Well, I thought, this I have to try. By this time, the deadline was fast approaching, and I had to sweat out a couple of weeks on a waiting list before I learned that I would be able to attend; but, on a beautiful day in late January, I found myself trying to balance on skinny skis. As I headed for the tracks, it hit me that this was the first time I was back in the mountains, much less back on the snow, since going blind. How I had missed that feeling!

And so it began: The first couple of days were spent learning how to go forward without sliding halfway back on every stride. My guide, Carlin Rauch, refused to let me give up on myself, and she pushed and pulled and dragged me past whatever I thought my limits were. When there was a downhill section I could not ski without falling, we spent an afternoon skiing down the hill and climbing back up until I made it down without falling. When I began to doubt my ability to ski ten kilometers before nightfall, she insisted that we would compete in the ten-K race! Gradually, I was able to ski farther and faster. On Thursday, we completed the entire ten-K course, and I knew that I should, at least, be able to finish.

But that had not prepared me for the excitement of race day. So there I was, one hundred meters from the finish line and almost out of gas; yet, Carlin was still pushing and pulling me, and I could hear the cowbells clanging at the finish line. In a final effort, I made it across. I had bettered Thursday's time by three-quarters of an hour!

Then I knew that all the aches and pains had been worthwhile. I had not been competing against other racers, but against my own limitations. Some of those limitations were real (blindness), some real but correctable (lack of experience), but many were self-imposed; fears that there were things I could not do -- fears that could only be overcome by doing those things. So I say thank you to all who made this event possible. Thank you for getting me back into the mountains, and back on the snow, on skis again. Thank you for helping me to do what I thought I couldn't. Thank you to all the new friends I made -- friends I would never have met if I had not gone blind.

Now it's been a month since the week in Granby, and the aches and pains have healed. A storm has just passed through the San Francisco area, and, in the mountains, the snow is fresh and deep. I'm going skiing!