It is early September as I write this. I am a month into a “get this sad old body in shape for the ski season” program. If we’re lucky, most Northwest ski resorts will be open by Thanksgiving, or the day after. My fitness plans target an earlier day.
Opening Day!
Living in a ski area in my younger years, it was the lifestyle that kept me in condition. Daily biking, hiking, climbing, taking a run now and then. It all combined for a low-key effective, unconscious, conditioning program. After couple of days on the hill in early November, I’d be sore and then it was all wine and roses.
Now, with other things in my life taking a bit of time, the “lifestyle” of staying in shape takes a back seat. Still, not wanting the pain, I’ve developed a casual, deliberate and effective pre-season conditioning program. I divide it into three parts: Flexibility, motion and balance.
Flexibility. Every morning, I stretch for five or 10 minutes. Sitting on the floor, clasping my hands behind my head, I touch my elbows to my knees. Then I move to traditional track stretches, one leg back trying vainly to touch my forehead to my knee. I finish standing, twisting my trunk and touching my toes.
In a week a change occurs. In a month my increased flexibility is dramatic.
Motion. I forget about my car. I walk. If it takes 10 minutes or half an hour more, I still walk. Think about the times you drive a few minutes for an errand when you could walk? It may take more time, but what is time? It’s your time. Use it better. Walk.
I walk an hour a day in the months before ski season. Once determined, the time develops easily. Ten minutes here, 15 minutes there. Fairly soon, with little effort, an hour or more clocks in every day.
Balance. Two or three times a week, I combine motion with balance. I climb. I tend to boulder. No need to find a partner. My schedule remains loose. Good bouldering lies nearby where I live and an hour late in the day on still-warm rocks as the sun slips behind the ridge is mentally rewarding.
Other times I take my mountain bike on the trails spidering out from town. I stay on single tracks. Balance, shifting, balance, pedaling. All motion. All balance.
Once a week, I spend all day outside. Hiking, biking, climbing. The week before the snows hit the alpine, I’ll summit the peak I see out my front window.
A few Octobers ago I helped a couple of friends put up wood for their cabin near Crystal Mountain. All day we bucked and split wood hauled to the cabin, the smell of the cedars and firs thick in the cool fall air. Not warm enough for t-shirts, we sweated — hauling, tossing rounds and collecting sawdust and wood chips in our hair.
Needing a break in the early afternoon, we set off hiking up a horribly steep trail. Out of the valley, we entered a small alpine basin, shin deep in snow and the lake half frozen.
Back at the cabin, about dark, we fired up the snorkel stove for the hot tub. After dinner we soaked, looking at the stars. The next day we finished the wood and drove back to Seattle.
Two weeks later, the mountain opened. That day in October was as close to getting sore as I got that year. Not close at all.
Summary
Take off on a mountain bike. Find a single track. Take it up. Take it down. Balance in motion.
Dump the car. Walk. Every time you pick up the keys, stop. Think … can I walk?
Climb. In a gym. Or go to a crag. Flake out the rope and lead a new pitch.
Go in motion. Stretch.
Remember, there will be a day, a day sometime before Thanksgiving, that it will all make sense … As the chair slows, you slide off at the top. Looking out at the view, the only thing you’ll worry about is remembering how to turn.
Keith Liggett is a transplanted Columbia River Gorge resident taking hiatus in Fernie, B.C. for the ski season.
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