Race of Death

I entered the first ski race of my life this past weekend and for a short time I thought I might actually place in my division. In order to cement my place on the 1st place pedestal, I decided on the final day of competition to go for broke and go as fast as I could. Just so you know, this race course was down a large ditch, full of sharp banked turns and jumps, but I was feeling pretty fearless and confident that I could beat the other guys in my division. On my final run of the course I was two turns from the finish line, when I had a mandatory jump on a high banked turn. I realized at the last second that I was going way too fast. The jump threw me into the air, completely off balance. In my memory it plays back in slow motion. I go full tilt off the jump, I have the “Oh shit!” moment while floating in mid-air, my weight is too far back and I realize I’m gonna crash, hard. Then I smash into the snow, one ski flies off immediately, my knee cracks into my helmet clad skull, and my body tumbles down the steep bank of the race course. It turns out I was only temporarily stunned and I was actually quick to get up and get out of the way, due to the fear of being run over by the next racer’s skis. It was a pretty big blow-out. I had to collect my skis and walk to the finish, feeling completely dejected. Definitely not the way I wanted to end the race, with a DNF for my score (Did Not Finish). My brain was definitely rattled as well. I had a significant headache and trouble forming sentences the rest of the day.

“Me crash. Hurt bad. No go doctor. Me go home. Drink beer.”

Did I learn anything from such a grand catastrophe? Uh…only that I am invincible. I can be hurt, but not broken. I’ve gone through the logic in my mind and I’m pretty sure my bones are laced with adamantium, just like the fabled comic hero, Wolverine. So, I’m for sure going to enter the race again next year, this time with the understanding, that to win the race, you have to go fast, but you also have to not crash. At least it wasn’t some shitty spin-out crash that took me out. It was a full-tilt blow-out by a guy who had no idea what he was doing except that he was gonna go for the victory and ski as fast as physics allowed.

No Fear.

Remember those T-shirts? I used to think they were the coolest shirts you could own in middle school. I had a couple of them with football themes, a sport I never played in any kind of organized form. Now I think about those and realize that they were super gay. They may have tried to convey some sort of ethos to live by, but all the kids I knew just liked them ‘cause they were a status symbol. I definitely lived with a lot of fear back then. Fear of bullies, fear of physical confrontation, fear of being different. I remember making fun of the kids with the cheap rip-off T-shirts, such as Fear Nothing and other silly slogans. But really, what was the difference? It just shows you how stupid kids are and how going to public schools forces you to become a conformist in order to survive.