Ottawa Survival Guide: Take Up Skiing!

Joy here...I've logged countless hours on this blog complaining about winter.  I've offered a definition of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and drawn attention to when that dark cloudy malaise descends upon me and makes me feel as though I'm living life while squashed under a weighty mattress of laziness as a motivation hoover sucks at me constantly.

But then...

...in the midst of all this "I hate winter" "get me outta here" stuff, I discovered cross country skiing.  Now, to be sure, our first attempt at this sport didn't go so well.  We were underdressed, underprepared, and we froze our butts off.  It was miserable, and did nothing to ameliorate the negative effects of winter, or what a student once referred to as the "ferocity of the weather."  But after last Friday's lesson with our instructor, we headed out on Sunday on our own to practice the drills she gave us.

I could hear her in my head the whole time (your weight must only ever be on one foot at a time...drive! with the back foot...left, right, left, right) as we went back and forth on a stretch of trails in Ottawa's Greenbelt area for just over an hour.

The not-so-green Greenbelt.

This is our fifth winter living in Ottawa, and lots of people told us that we should take up cross country skiing, but I'll admit that I never really "got it" if you know what I mean, and here are some reasons why:

1.)  Partly, the cheapness lag leftover from years of being an impoverished graduate student made it seem like a really big step to invest in a bunch of new equipment for an untried sport.  (Buying a house, though, somehow made spending money on sport seem like small potatoes.  It's funny how a mountain of mortgage debt makes everything else seem insignificant!)

2.)  Then there was the fact that I had tried cross country skiing as a kid growing up in Winnipeg, but never really remember any serious lessons about technique.  My previous, childhood cross country ski experience was of the "shuffle, shuffle, shuffle" variety, which was no different really than sliding on a polished floor with socks (except for the addition of skis).  That wasn't really an experience that I felt I needed to reclaim as an adult...but that skiing is NOTHING like real cross country skiing with proper technique.

Back and forth, back and forth...

3.)  As well, I'll admit that there's something bordering on the embarrassing about not having any skill or experience at all at something that it seems kids around here know from the cradle.  Ottawa has a very "small town" or "clique" feel about it at times as though you're just supposed to be "in the know" about certain things, and so there's no way for anyone to learn about those certain things if they happen to be an outsider.  In principle and in practice this drives me nuts about this town.  So generally I have avoided doing something particularly "Ottawa insider-ie" as a form of rebellion against this insider/outsider parochialism, and skiing (the equipment, the lessons, the places to do it, etc.) all fell into this category that I have been resistant to.

4.)  And then there's the ever-present winter blahs that just make starting something, anything new in the middle of winter an insurmountable hurdle that I just can't overcome, no matter what.

This year, however, we made the decision to give this sport a try. We bought our skis before we left for Malaysia for the holidays, knowing that if we didn't get all our proverbial ducks in a row beforehand, there's just no way that we'd do it mid-January.  If we weren't ready to go upon landing back in frigid Ottawa, then it would just be too easy to put it off for yet another year.

Sunset on a beautiful winter day of skiing.

And let me tell you...I think that every person who moves to Ottawa should get an "Ottawa Survival Guide" with page 2 indicating that they need to take up cross country skiing (page 1 can be all about the canal).  They should run (not walk) to their nearest cross country ski store and get all set up before winter.  Sign up for introductory lessons, and just get out there.  Feeling the skis glide beneath your feet and the sensation of fun, power, and speed in the middle of winter can give you a boost in your mood that is the only effective corrective to S.A.D. that I have experienced, and for the first time in my adult life, I may begin to look at snow differently, and I may just look forward to winter.

For now, I'm just looking forward to Wednesday, my next ski day!

Over and out,
Joy