around the corner

Sometimes, you have no idea what's around the corner. This came oh so clear to me in the exam room of an urgent care center in Surprise, Arizona.

After leaving Alaska following long distance nationals and an end-of-season backcountry ski trip, I headed down to Arizona for some days in the sun, on the golf course, with the grandparents. Setting foot in Arizona, I felt a little pain in my lower leg. But it was nothing, especially compared to taking in the sights of arriving back to the continental United States after three months abroad. Soon, in the comfort of family, talking motorcycles with Uncle Shane and the prospect of having a handful of unstructured, relaxing days ahead, the little leg pain I felt soon melted away.

A day later, I'm in a medical center waiting room, wondering what I'm doing here. In several directions my focus is interrupted by the deep, almost sinister, coughs of young'ens and elders battling bronchitis. "If I don't need to be here now, I'll probably need to be back here in a couple days" I remember thinking before getting agitated about whether my insurance would cover this little visit to the doctor.

In time, the doctor arrives. "I don't think it's much of anything but.." I begin to say but don't finish. Just the look on the doctor's face tells me its more than nothing. "It's good you're here right now," he begins. "It's real good this looks contained. You have cellulitis. This is a skin infection that starts with a scrape, a cut, insect bite or hair follicle that becomes infected by bacteria. This might not sound like much but this is serious stuff. Because it's in the lower leg where blood flow is low we need to hit this hard. I'm putting you on two very powerful antibiotics. We'll get this cleared up in a week. Ten days maybe. Call me in three days, tell me how the treatment's coming along."

Three days go by. In these three days I get a little worried. The leg doesn't look better. I've got the swelling of edema going on, the pain's still there, the redness hasn't gone away. Once again, I head to urgent care. It's Easter morning. The bronchitis patients must be hunting easter eggs or sleeping in. Either way, they're not here. But my doctor is. This time I don't say anything. He doesn't say anything. I know this isn't good.

That morning the culture results come in from the lab. They read, "explosive growth." The big needles come out, as do the liquid antibiotic. If we weren't messing around before, we really aren't now.

Two days later, I'm back in Washington. The liquid Rocephin seems to be working. I stop in to see my primary care doctor. He wants to have my leg opened up, and "irrigate it out." I almost thought he was talking about the acres of apple orchards in blossom around town.

The coolest part of surgery came in getting injected with linocain and getting to watch the surgeon cut into my leg. Very rarely do you get to see a professional ply their trade with a real, meaningful outcome depended on the volitional skill of another; both Dr. Rossi's and my attention singularely centered on the task at hand.

And the worst part. That's easy. It's came in making sure the wound, the hole in my leg, heals from the inside out. Twice a day I pack into the wound as much medicated ribbon into my leg. This ribbon acts like a wick, drawing out the bacterial evilness from my body. Medical professionals call this tunneling. I call it a disgusting process that leaves me feeling a little nauseous and dreading wound dressing change time.

Now, life is trending back to normalcy. First, I just rested. Then I started kayaking in the Columbia River. Then came running on the underwater treadmill and cycling. Now I'm back jogging with the middle school tracksters. This weekend I'm headed up to Whistler for a week of skiing at the Olympic venues. It hasn't been the April I envisioned. But you know what? Sometimes you have no idea what's around the corner.

Concluding

The Season's Done.


The skinny race skis have been replaced by bigger, heavier, more shapely, boards.

In morning, the paths heads in one general direction. That is up.


If lucky by night the peak nears.

Blooming

Some weeks ago ITA alum Matt Chisam posed a question on the nature-versus-nature debate. At the time I was away on a self-prescribed week long internet and telephone exodus in Rybinsk, Russia. Mr. Chisam's question was, "What do you believe had the most influence on your athletic career - nature or nurture?"

Since then, I've had time to ponder this and today is as good as any to put these musings to print. Initially, I thought the point mute and as I work my way through the question I keep coming back to one idea, that nature and nurture work in concert together, not in opposition or at the expense of the other. Our genes expressing themselves accordingly to the environment and opportunities one finds them exposed to. This is my interpretation. This is my belief. You can call it Torin's Theorem of Gene Expression. Now let me make you a believer.

Look, I get it. Alice In Chain's Layne Staley might have said "deny your maker" in an anthem from my youth, but that doesn't mean I have to believe in all he's selling. The way I see it, our genetic make-up plays a part in perhaps every single interaction in every single person's life. Nature's backers will point out the prodigies. No matter how much I enmesh myself in the world of virtuoso piano competition, I'd play chopsticks to Frederic Chopin's compositions. But most prodigies are likely found in chess, music, pure mathematics. These domains draw upon a specific, singular, delimited skillset. Gary Kasparov didn't need to attend chess school to kill your queen, conquer your king. But I'm sure it didn't hurt to learn from a couple of grandmasters of chess, either.

I'm sorry. Even after all this being said, in sport and in life, is there nothing surer than wasted talent? For every Michael Johnson, there's ten, twenty, (a hundred?)Obree Moore's.

And it seems everywhere you want to look, you can find an excuse. Freud tells us to blame our parents. Marx, our society. Wrong neighborhood, wrong side of the tracks, too rich, too poor... It's as if personal responsibility no longer, if ever, exists.

If I see any message in this, it is - do not buy the label. The moment we believe in our hearts success is determined by an ingrained level of ability - free and independent of determination and resilience and hardwork - we become brittle in the face of adversity. When someone says, "I'm just not talented enough," maybe that's the least of the problem. Because what is talent is not elusive? If not fleeting? If not collaborative?

among ocean and mountain

With a glance back, time's march forward hinges halt. In the post-Lahti Ski Games race analysis, the final words read, "Find a way to win. I can. I know this. I know this better today than yesterday. I need to know this just as well tomorrow as today. Now it's how I can make this happen."

From Finland, I take away another sight. It comes from the ski jumps in Lahti. On a hill visible throughout the town, a progression of six ski jumps rest, a reminder to the young Lahti jumper where the ultimate goal lies. And this goal, to fly through the air far past the big hill 130 meter K-mark as forty thousand rowdy, stumblingly intoxicated countrymen cheer you on at the Lahti Ski Games.

Skiing by, I see kids five or six years old heading off the 25 meter hill. The jump, comparative to last night's big hill competition, makes for a short flight. But still, for one revealing moment, the young jumper gets into the full flight before touching back upon earth with a telemark landing. Icarus would like the effort. So would Janne Ahonen. Or America's Billy Demong.

From Lahti, I head west to Trondheim, Norway. Walking along the Nidelva river, heading to the open ocean fjords of downtown Trondheim, I'm taken aback by the cityscape scene. Cobble stone walkways and wooden bridges give way to the Atlantic. The sky is clearing and the last rays of day's sun make a final appearance. It's March, yet drifting piles of whiteness from yesterday's snow collect on the ocean front docks, yet there's only open water in the harbor. Ah, to take in the beautiful incongruity of a 64 degree latitude matched with a zero foot starting elevation.

First I pass by the Nidaros Cathedral - a tower of granite and craftmanship and copper seen from every house and hamlet, built in 1152 in this onetime pagan Viking land.

On the hill overlooking city and fjord, an austere white castle looms. It's the Kristiansten Fortress, built to keep out Swedes with a thirst for conquest.

On the aquatic side of the street, reclaimed old brick buildings that once hosted maritime dry-dock operators and ship builders now house college students, cafes, corner markets and small boutique shops.

It's then I have the thought. All cities are built along some source of liquid, with perhaps the better measure given to those residing along an expanse of salty ocean water. But the best of cities? The ones atop my list have but one requirement - a place where ocean and mountain meet.

Raceday came yesterday. Instead of using gooey klister or a purple-hued hard wax concoction in the wax pocket - the centermost part of my classic skis - I go on my "zeros." The name comes from the conditions the ski works best in; that is, fresh snow falling within a degree or two from zero centrigrate. Zero skis are made by taking sixty grit sandpaper and roughing up ski's wax pocket. This operation leaves micro-hairs of flourinated polyurethane that cling to the snow when compressed against it, then release when the compression ends.

Not everyone likes the feeling of skiing sandpapered skis. Not everyone can change their technique to make zeros a viable raceday option. For this very reason perhaps I love racing on "zeros".

And yet, as in everything in life, there's two distinct areas of enterprise: There's things you can control. And there's the things you cannot.



In Trondheim, I drew starting position number one for the interval start, race-against-the-clock, prologue. Normally this would be fine. Today, though, a just before raceday snow storm settled in, blanketing the race loop with a layer of wet, slow, suctiony powder I got to plow through. In the race against the clock, this was an added challenge.

I layed it out on the course. Fifteen seconds later, Fabio Pasini of Italy finished. We're within a tenth. Next, two-time World sprint medalist Johann Kjoelstad crosses the line, half a second back. Then comes, Nokolay Morilov, fresh off a bronze at Worlds, +4.5 in arrears.

Okay, I've done what I need to do. Now it's off to get the effort out of my body and to get ready for the head-to-head racing that'll determine first to thirtieth. Only, it's not to be today. The once powdery tracks soon glaze. Gliding velocity speeds up. I finish 37th, my racing day ending early. All that awaits me today is hard intensity, away from the nine thousand spectators lining the course.

Next week, racing around the King's Castle in downtown, Sweden awaits. Another opportunity. Not losing the feeling I had in Lahti, going out and skiing strong and big and fast in Stockholm is totally, 100%, within my control. The King of Sweden will be there. So too, will be, Princess Madeleine. A personality of intrigue, to be sure.

Wait, what's that I hear in the distance? Could it be? Yes, it is. The bells of Nidaros Cathedral ring. They ring for you. They ring for me. I'm coming Miss Madeleine...

Still among the shadows

"Even though the sport inspires magic, it's magicians need the latitude to be human." -A friend after a hard day.



"For I fancy I do know the nature of courage, but somehow or another, she has slipped away from me and I cannot get a hold of her and tell her nature." - Plato

Ciao for now. -Tk

Such Great Heights

Melville once wrote “winter isn’t a season; it’s a place.” Nearing the top notch in Foscagno Pass of Northern Italy, leaving the mountain playground of Bormio behind, with the glimpses of the Livigno Valley opening up ahead, one begins to feel the truth to Melville’s words. You feel a connection to the scene - to the mountains, to the snow you just plied your trade on, to the cold, dry, high altitude air – becoming, at least in one’s own mind, a Khan of the mountains, a King of the Alps.

Nearby, weekend jet setters from Milano and Lake Como share these heights, hitting the slopes from the hours of eleven to two, to receive the good tidings of these mountains. Curiously, untold miles of wind-loaded, off-piste terrain remain untracked, just waiting for a light human touch to add to the mountain’s perfection. All I know is I want to come back right here with a beacon, a pair of reverse camber Rossignols underfoot and a little forgiveness from the gatekeepers of this hauntingly beautiful land.

This last part is perhaps the most important part. The name Livigno traces its roots back to the Middle Ages, where its Latin name was "vinea et vineola." This has nothing to do with vineyards and everything to do with mountains and snow. "Vinea et vineola" means avalanche. Looking out to the whiteness of the mountainscape all around, I appreciate that name.

Today, though, I left the Alps behind and made my way to the Jizershe Mountains of the Czech Republic in Liberec. The World Championships are just around the corner. I’ll take to the start line in just under a week. Ahh, to have one’s muse appear upon company time.

Traversing the Alps

This summer a friend asked me where my favorite European spot for ski training was located. The answer wasn't hard to come by - Ramsau am Dachstein. Since Russia, this has been my home for the past week.

Tomorrow, though, I'm off to the Northern Italian town of Bormio for the last World Cup before the big show, the World Championships. Leaving the the schnitzel, the spetzle, the sauna, and most importantly the trails that run steps right from the hotel will be a little easier than usual.

With the World Championships just around the corner, new faces have joined our team. It's good to get a bigger U.S. crew over here. Last week, three younger athletes from the U-23 Championships rolled into Ramsau. Today, ITA's own Laura Valaas made her way into the neighborhood.

I'm sure the next days will bring some stories to write about. Until then, enjoy the days. -Tk