'Tis The Season To Get Fit

OK, I really need to up my fitness level with immediate effect. One month today we fly to Norway for a week of snow-related activities...we’ll be snow-shoeing most days, but there’s the chance to try cross-country skiing (at which I’m fairly confident I’ll be pathetically rubbish) and (most excitingly!) dog sledding. There’s even the very slim chance we may see the Northern Lights.

I’m not the most athletic of persons, but I do a fair bit of walking most days and have been on some quite hectic hikes in recent years (most notably the Alpine treks with the sadistic Swedish guide back in 2007 described here). I accidentally discovered snow-shoeing when the skiing part of the Christmas 2003 holiday with J and M in the French Alps didn’t really go that well for me. Might have been something to with having to be rescued off a mountain...in a blizzard...with suspected concussion...on the first day we actually hit the slopes.

Never one to do things in half measures, I was pretending to ski when I fell on the piste, whacking my head rather hard. I’d already fallen over a dozen times...even once forwards onto my face, which is apparently almost impossible to do on skis, but I did it! This was a particularly hard thwack on the back of my head, though, and, as I lay on the frozen ground, dazed and wondering which way was up or down, it started snowing very hard. That was it! I completely lost my nerve and could not face the trip back down to the chalet on my own steam. The ski lifts were now closed due to the inclement weather and everyone was hurrying to get off the slopes. We were going to have to get help or things could get scary....so experienced skier J shot off down the mountain, and soon came back with Rescue Man and his orange ski stretcher. He asked me “Do you have travel insurance?” [stupid question for a paranoid, pessimistic planner!] “Bon! Because this is the most expensive taxi ride you’ll ever take!” And at 300 euros for a few hundred metres, I should hope it was!

Rescue Man: Just lie down here

Me: You gotta be shittin' me!

To the great amusement of B, J and M (and to my mortification) I was strapped and tightly bound, like an Egyptian mummy, into the stretcher, and then dragged down the slope at high speed, behind Winter Olympics Downhill Skiing Champion aka Rescue Man. If I didn’t have concussion before that ride, I definitely had it afterwards, as my head hit every stone and tree root hidden under the snow on the way down. What was worse, the vibrations from our rapid descent caused my ski goggles to work their way up my face and the frame dug into my eye sockets....but with my arms tied to my chest, there was nothing I could do. The ski stretcher came to an abrupt halt in trendy Courchevel resort, where the Dior ski suits mingle with Prada. Everyone stopped and stared....orange stretchers usually meant broken limbs. I staggered to my feet. I was in a right state by now.... shaking from adrenaline, only partially sighted from the eye gouging of the goggles and frozen to the core, with icicles forming in my hair.

Rescue Man took me into the first aid office and proceeded to quiz me (in French) about the school my father attended and how many cats my great aunt Doris had...I later worked out he was checking me for memory loss. Luckily J was with me and she’s fluent in French (and Spanish) so she could interpret. I’d forgotten how to speak English, never mind any French I’d acquired at school. By now I was rapidly defrosting in the heat of the office, leaving a pool of water on the floor. I had to complete a form...wish I’d made a copy of it as a souvenir before I sent it to my insurers as it was filled out in the shaky, spidery writing of an octogenarian, with the watermarks of a dozen drops that dripped from my hair and onto the page.

I decided there and then that downhill skiing was not my bag, and that I would have to find some other winter activity to fill my week. And thus I discovered snow-shoeing...what a pleasure! Forget the rat run of the ski slopes.....snow-shoeing is the civilised way to enjoy snow. Breaking trails through virgin snow, trekking silently over crisp fields and through fairytale forests, pausing to sip wine and nibble cheese provided by the snow-shoe guide, while surrounded by absolute calm and breathtaking scenery. Best part: you can go downhill on your butt when faced with a hairy descent....

A slightly undignified descent!

I reckon you need to learn to ski when you’re young and fearless and have a flexible body, say around 7 or 8.....not the wrong side of 30 when the sense of mortality has kicked in and when hurtling downhill on a pair of skis not much wider than a ruler does not seem like a particularly sensible way to travel. Looking back now, I realise skiing is a lot more dangerous than I’d thought and I was crazy to be anywhere but on the nursery slopes until I’d had many more lessons. Every year, people are seriously injured when skiing (I personally know 3 people who have had long-term hospital stays and been off work for months after a slip on the slopes). Tragically, earlier this year, Natasha Richardson died following a head injury sustained when she fell during a skiing lesson in Canada.

But on that sad note, it’s time to whip my cold, lethargic butt into shape....dust off the exercise bike and do daily squats.

I’ll let you know how it goes...