Be Not Afraid!

By: In: The Last Ride

 
 
 
Lately, the words have been flowing like a gusher of fine olive oil. Not only, have the ideas of topics to write about been coming fast and furiously, but I have been making the time and taking the effort to get them out! I know there are probably at least a half dozen ideas I have forgotten about in this creative spurt I am undergoing.

The writing is like so much else, you have to let go of the fear. What fear is involved in writing, you think that a silly statement? Fear of going on the record, fear of getting something wrong, fear of not winning the Pulitzer prize, fear of stuffing up the grammar and punctuation, fear of….

Yeah, nothing like the physical fear that seizes us when trying to pitch ourselves down that headwall the first time, but it is fear none-the-less. Again, a constant theme in a lot of my writing of late is the need to leave the fear at the brink of the headwall and attack. Get over the center of your skis and drive those boards on the way down the headwall, write that “silly” little article, or ask that stranger to buy something from you. In fact, does not The Holy Bible counsel us to be not afraid?

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Lining Up

By: In: Media, Photography, Skiing
Line 'Em Up!

A Future Lyndsey Vonn or Bode Miller?

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Good and Steep Skiing

By: In: Skiing

 
 
 
Not too long ago I put up a couple of videos from YouTube. The first video is of a semi-pro with a helmet camera, but it is a pro setup. The video comes along with commentary from the announcers. The skier runs a downhill race course and catches every bit of air one would expect.

The second video is an amateur skier with a handheld video camera skiing down the same ski run. He is not running a course but is free skiing. However, watch the video, you can see how is skiing by watching his shadow. In addition, he includes the raw audio, so you can hear him verbally react to the jumps (on top, he doesn’t seem to catch much air down course), and has he starts off down the serious headwall.

Notice how the perspective changes as he is skiing through the terrain park and the headwall. The terrain park appears flat, while the headwall is noticeably sloped downhill. Neither portion of the course is flat, but it takes the extreme slope of the headwall to show up on the camera. Another measure you can use to figure out how steep the headwall is, is the shadow he casts, notice how far down the headwall that shadow reaches.

Even after all of that, the ease by which he handles that run and by the flattening affect of the camera, I sit here thinking I can handle that run. I know I can get myself up to it, but it would take some work, and I need to learn to let loose on steeps, and not not be defensive.

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On Balance

By: In: Health and Fitness, Skiing

 
 
 
One of the key factors in ski & snowboarding health is balance. Often times when we think of physical fitness for the snow we think of getting our legs muscles up to snuff and our cardiovascular fitness up.

However, who thinks of balance? I know the ski publications do, they often have many exercises aimed at improving one’s ability to keep one’s self balanced. However, in general at the gym most people don’t seem to think of balance you will see people:

  • spinning RPMs on the bikes
  • pounding miles on treadmills
  • pumping iron
  • working the ellipticals

and so on.

However, how often do we see people working exercises that challenge their balancing ability? Very rare. In fact, a person’s ability to balance is often derided, for example, the commercial implying it unmanly to perform feats of balance (unless it is someone else running down a football field). I say rubbish, I say the ability of a person to tippy-toe in field of green without a football translates nicely to a person being able to maintain their balance in a field of moguls on a 40% slope.

I am not going to discuss specifics on challenging your balance you can google that up, but I am trying to remind all of us that working on our balance should be included with our strength and cardiovascular training.

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Trigonometry for Skiers

By: In: Skiing

One item of frequent discussion in ski & snowboard circles is the steepness of a given slope. However, I get the feeling when I see and hear discussions on slope of a given hill is people are either not using the terminology in the same way as others or they use the terminology in a sloppy fashion.

First, let us consider the below triangle:

Figure 1

This is 90°-45°-45° angle:
α = β = 45°
γ = 90°
A=1000 units (length)
B=1000 units (length)

When I speak of slope of a ski hill I think of the angle α in the above diagram.

Another common term used to describe the slope of a snowboard run is in terms of percent grade. The percent grade of a slope is defined as: 100 x (the change in vertical elevation divided by the change in horizontal distance). So, in the above diagram we drop 1000 units of vertical in 1000 units of horizontal = 100*(1000/1000) which makes for 100% grade. No, a grade of 100% is not straight down.

In fact, this is tangent of angle α so in order to find the angle α when given a percent grade (g) simply use your calculator to compute tan -1(g).

You will find, in general, most ski slopes we ski on are well under 100% grade.

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Mind Games

By: In: Skiing, The Last Ride

 
 
 
Lately, I have been near obsessive about viewing YouTube POV videos of skiers going down ski trails of nasty repute, e.g. Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek, the HahnenKamm at Kitzbühel, and the downhill race course at Lake Louise. I watch the videos and the combination of translating a 3D world onto a 2D medium and the excellence of the skiers taking the video makes the runs appear to be fairly, well, simple.

However, I have skied enough to know the runs these people are skiing down are not “simple”, but major portions of each run earn black diamond or double black diamond ratings and these are mountain ratings too. So, I do know they do present serious difficulties to the skier.

However, I wonder how much of the difficulty is more mind game than actual difficulty? I often find myself at the top of a challenging trail having to psych myself up for it and then when I do go, find myself holding back. Not so much because I can not manage the run, but because sometimes I fear letting go. I can manage speed, I have hit 60mph and put the breaks on and stopped in a fairly short distance. I know how to work a hill to keep speed under wraps and if the runs are wide and sparsely populate I can traverse the hill without a problem.

How can I possibly take on challenging terrain? I need to get myself into shape, but once that is done then what? How does one get their mind into shape for such challenges?

Forget about skiing now and think of the daily grind. We can do a lot more than we do, but only if we let ourselves, only if we brush aside our fears and push off of the edge onto that headwall.

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Winter is Being a Tease

By: In: Media, Non-Fiction, Writing

 
 
 
Steve Smith writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Off the Couch sports blog notes:

Most of us spend all summer complaining about precipitation and unseasonably low temperatures, and then winter begins to tease.

It’s as though the wrapping on a gift sitting under the Christmas tree has torn just a bit to reveal that the present juuuussstttt miiiight just be….

Like children following reports on Santa, an anxious segment of the population starts scrutinizing long-range forecasts for rain of the frozen variety. Some of us see blue on the national weather maps and start begging Mother Nature to settle in, below-freezing with a comforting blanket of snow.

Wow, so true. I hear all the reports of snow out West and tune in the TV and watch Lyndsey Vonn skiing to World Cup glory and then another time I see Bode doing the same. I am spending lots of online time watching POV videos of skiers going down Birds of Prey (that doesn’t look that bad) or The Hahnenkamm (WAH! That doesn’t look that bad either, LOL!) and the wait provides me good motivation to get into the gym and work on my physical conditioning.

In any event, with the holiday season full swing skiing isn’t happening just yet. Still, the fact of snow on the ground provides comfort and assurance that ski season is just around the corner.

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More Ski Wisconsin Commentary

By: In: News, Skiing

 
 
 
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Every February, Will Andersen heads west for a week of serious skiing at one of the top resorts in Utah’s Wasatch Range, where he’ll carve turns on runs that drop from lofty summits around 11,000 feet down to base areas more than 3,000 feet below.
…
“Wisconsin is where I live and ski most of the winter,” says Andersen, who dwells in rural Dane County and is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I know that some people who also live here but disdain skiing in the Midwest. Not me.

I have commented on this copiously here, but what alternative is there? Yeah, the slopes are not as long, steep, numerous, or fast. However, the speeds experience in my comfy chair are less thrilling yet! So, I ski here when I can and enjoy it and enjoy being with my family, friends, and fellow skiers.

Get out there folks!

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Birds of Prey

By: In: Media, Skiing

 
 
 
I got curious about searching for video of skiers going down Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey race course.

Here is one, seemingly produced by whatever television network was carrying world cup skiing some years ago.

Early on in the video is a elevation to distance profile of the course. You can pause it and take a close look at the numbers, but here is my analysis.
(more…)

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The Badgers Win! YEAH and MEH!

By: In: Media, Non-Fiction, Writing

Last Saturday evening the University of Wisconsin (football) Badgers won a close game against the Michigan State (football) Spartans. The game was close the whole way through with the Badgers and Spartans trading leads and momentum. Again it was a last minute ending, ending on what appeared to be a Spartan punt return for a game-winning TD (or close enough). However, a Spartan defender ran into the punter and the Badgers got the ball back and assumed the victory formation to seal the win, the first Big 10 championship (new format), and a berth to the Rose Bowl. Yeah for the Badgers.

The two games these teams played this year show them to be evenly matched and the difference being chance events.

Now for the MEH part.
(more…)

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