Amy Reinink

And just like that, my season at Whitetail is through.

This weekend, I’m attending a women’s ski-and-toboggan clinic at Sno Mountain in Scranton, Penn. A few days later, we’ll be boarding a plane for a long-awaited ski vacation to the Alps and Dolomites. By the time we return, Whitetail will likely be long closed for the season. It’s all exciting stuff, but man, was it sad leaving Whitetail on Monday afternoon with the knowledge that we won’t be back until next season!

There were a lot of emotions swirling around as I packed up the car with the ski gear, snacks, bedding and other essentials I’ve amassed throughout the season. The chief emotion was disbelief—with the long trips between Whitetail, Virginia Beach and D.C. and the actual brevity of this winter (seven weeks for me—maybe nine weeks for the mountain?), the season went by in a blink.

This is what it looks like when you live out of your car for a month and a half.

Another emotion: Pride. As we pulled out of the parking lot, my chest swelled with the pride that follows the accomplishment of a long-term, challenging goal. It wasn’t the attainment of the red coat that made me feel all warm and fuzzy, but the fact that I nailed a process-based goal I set for myself back in physical therapy, when I channeled Tim Tebow through this quote from his UF days:  “I promise you one thing: A lot of good will come out of this. You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season.” As I watched Whitetail fade into the distance in my rearview mirror, I realized that I lived up to the Tebow promise and then some: A lot of good came out of this (this=my ACL tear). You have never seen any ski patroller try as hard as I tried this season.

But most of all, I felt a rush of gratitude thinking of all the people who helped me get here. Anytime you set out to accomplish a goal that feels out of your reach, you need someone who believes in you before you believe in yourself. Even in my roughest days of training, I had a whole cadre of cheerleaders—Steve, my friends, my classmates, the S&T instructors—reminding me that they believed I could get there. And I did.

Some other things that happened over the weekend:

I gave Steve a few sled rides to practice my toboggan skills. It was a really pleasing sense of role reversal, since he spent last season towing my gimpy butt around in a sled. He took a few pictures from the passenger’s seat.

I celebrated with my class. On Sunday afternoon, we gathered to take a new class picture—you know, one in which I’m not weeping silently in the back row, or wearing a knee immobilizer.

After posing for a few photos, a few of my classmates took off to go work a shift on top of the beginners’ ski lift, Easy Rider, while the rest of us hung out on top of the mountain. Not more than a minute later, we heard one of our classmates’ voices on the radio, calling in a 10-50, or injury. Now, I’d been hoping for my first “transport” all day, so when we heard the call, I grabbed a sled and headed that way—with the rest of my class in tow. Since Steve still had our camera around his neck from the class photos, he actually took a bunch of photos while the seven of us worked to accomplish what’s essentially a one- or two-person job. I’ll spare the patient—a sweet, good sport of a woman who’d twisted her knee—the embarrassment of having her photo on this blog. But suffice it to say that there’s a photo of us in which we’re all grinning like idiots—including the patient.

The presence of all my classmates made the incident feel like one of our practice scenarios. Of course, it wasn’t, and the patient’s gratitude (like I said, she was a really good sport) drove home the very reason I spent so long training—so that when I actually transported a patient in a sled, it felt like second nature. Which is a pretty good way to end a season, if you ask me.

The night before the 100K Vertical Challenge to benefit Two Top Adaptive Sports Foundation, another participant and I got talking about how all endurance events are pretty much the same. You start in a haze of excitement and adrenaline; lock into a pace and get into a groove in the middle; crash and burn and doubt yourself near the end of the middle; muscle through the beginning of the end; and then glide jubilantly to the finish.

What I realized at the time, but didn’t say: Most endurance events I’ve done in the past don’t require much finesse, only the will to muscle through the ugly end parts. Attempting to muscle through seven runs in icy, choppy conditions after skiing 100 runs throughout the day … well, this was going to be a bit different. Here’s how the day went down.

7 a.m. Wake up in Whitetail’s ski-patrol bunk room. Scarf down a Larabar and chug some coffee before heading outside.

Giddily posing for a pre-race photo.

7:30 a.m. Pre-race meeting at the bottom of Whitetail’s detach lift. The bibs, the boxes full of Clif bars and Gatorade bottles, the waivers signing away our lives—it all feels so familiar. We pose for a bunch of pictures and delight in the fact that we aren’t carrying armfuls of bamboo around, as we would be at the start of a patrol shift.

Pre-race meeting.

8 a.m. Board lift and head up to the top of the mountain for group photo. And then, we begin!

Posing with our OEC buddy, Chuck.

8:15 a.m. Whee! Skiing is fun and fast! My turns are pretty! My instructors would be so proud. My upper body is in the right place, I’m carving nice, finished turns and I’m taking full advantage of the beautiful hero snow beneath me. Whee!

8:30 a.m. Screw pretty turns. Everyone else is straight-lining down the mountain. I might as well alternate sliding turns with some occasional edging.

9:15 a.m. Whee! Skiing is fun and fast! I’m right on pace to finish 107 runs by the end of the day. Ten runs down!

9:16 a.m. Ten runs down means there are still 97 runs to go. Hmm.

10 a.m. The crowd has thinned out. I’m locked into a nice groove. Steve disappears into the woods to take care of some business, and I keep going. “I’ll catch up,” he says. Like hell he will, I think.

Noon: Thirty-five runs down. Still no sign of Steve, which suggests we are actually skiing at exactly the same pace. I’ve spent the past two hours riding the lift with other participants, mostly fellow ski patrollers and other Whitetail employees. I talked to a guy from Philly who heard about the event from a friend, and a 75-year-old dude whose goal was to ski about 50,000 vertical feet before stopping. I also got to watch Todd Love, a Marine who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, and other disabled athletes take to the snow on sit-skis, giving us all a huge dose of motivation, and reminding us why we were there.

Still smiling at the halfway point.

2 p.m. I am, like Bon Jovi, halfway there. I spend a few lift rides alone, eating a sandwich I packed the night before (Contents of the sandwich: whole-wheat bread, red peppers, hummus, lettuce and sprouts. Other options: Hot dogs from the base lodge). Realize I’m still really, really hungry, and inhale my first of several bags of trail mix.

2:30 p.m. Debate how awful it would be to duck into the woods myself rather than hoofing it into Whitetail’s base lodge to use the restroom there. Decide it’s just fine to duck into the woods. I emerge from the woods just as the whole Park & Pipe crew (the guys who work on the terrain park) are getting off the lift. They look at me incredulously. I offer what I hope is a dignified nod as I click back into my skis.

2:35 p.m The snow is the softest it will be, and I’m starting to feel the effects of the previous 60 or so runs as I attempt to plow through it. The event’s organizer, a huge hulk of a dude whose radio call sign is “Heavy,” is cutting through it like a Mack truck. I feel like I’m stuck in a Miata.

5 p.m. Another stop in the woods, several bags of trail mix and a few hours later, I have fewer than 25 runs left. I have reunited with Steve. I’m not tired or sore, but my form is shot, and I imagine my instructors watching video footage of me skiing and saying: “I’m sorry, but I’ve never met this woman before.”

6 p.m. Free pizza. Is there anything better in the world than free pizza? Maybe eating free pizza on a chair-lift ride near the end of a beautiful day of skiing, with a view of a gorgeous sunset.

6:45: Run No. 100! Whee! The snow is setting up nicely as the temperature drops, and for the first time in my life, I’m loving the fact that it’s getting icy, giving me a boost of speed to catch up with the Mack trucks of the world. I realize that I can do something about my rapidly-degrading form, and find that reminding myself to stay out of the backseat, to drive forward with my knees and the big toe of my downhill ski, helps me stay in control in the slick conditions. Who would’ve thunk?

7:40 p.m. Run No. 107. We are positively slap-happy, and have taken to shouting the number of runs we have left at the top of the lift. We’ve met up with a patroller-friend also doing the challenge so we can tear through our last run together, cheering as we reach the bottom. We’re done! Done!

8 p.m. We click back into our skis to take last runs with a few other participants, to include 75-year-old Tom, who ended up shattering his expectation that he’d only ski 50,000 vertical feet by finishing the whole darn thing. Of the 25 people who signed up and the 22 people who started the challenge, 16 finished. Each of us wore the same expression on our faces upon finishing: “Oh, I guess I *can* do that.” Which is the reason we sign up for these endurance events in the first place, right?

It took me roughly 12 hours to complete the 107 runs I needed to ski to complete the 100K Vertical Challenge on Monday at Whitetail Resort. This is the expression I wore on my face for most of the day:

In other wordless news, check out Fox 5’s coverage of the event.

Full race report coming soon. In the meantime, thanks so much for all your support—it meant the world to me and the 24 other participants!

The weather is cold and clear. The wind has died down. The forecast calls for a high of 40 degrees—warm enough to be comfortable, but not so warm that the snow will turn into a wet, heavy slush in the afternoon. My skis are tuned, and my legs are rested (well, as rested as it’s possible to get by taking a single day off yesterday). So it’s all over but the skiing for the 100K Vertical Challenge to benefit Two Top Adaptive Sports Foundation!

At Whitetail, 100,000 vertical feet is roughly equal to 107 runs. My plan is to ski 10 runs per hour nonstop in the morning; take a brief break in the afternoon; then continue skiing at the 10-runs-per-hour rate until I’m done. Be sure to check my Twitter feed, as I’ll be live-Tweeting the event. Wish me luck!

Tomorrow morning, I’ll head to Whitetail for another Saturday of ski-and-toboggan training (hey, just because they gave my my license doesn’t mean I’m an experienced driver). On Sunday, though, the most strenuous thing on my agenda is getting my skis tuned ahead of the 100K Vertical Challenge to benefit Two Top Adaptive Sports Foundation on Monday. Thinking about doing 107 runs in a single day at this point is a little bit like staring at the course map of a marathon once you’re already tapering—terrifyingly hard to wrap my brain around, even after preparing myself as best as possible. Luckily, since I’ve been signing up for crazy stuff like this for most of my adult life, I’m aware that this means I’ve picked the best kind of challenge—one that stretches my idea of what I can accomplish, and feels slightly out of reach but not out of reason.

I’ll be Tweeting throughout the event, and will be sure to update this blog when I’ve limped back inside after I finish. For now, check out this terrific Frederick News-Post story about the event … and wish me luck!

Still want to donate? Find out how here.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that to attain full ski-patroller status, I had to guide a toboggan down Whitetail’s mogul run. It’s a mechanism that’s totally different from simply skiing the bumps, and something I couldn’t fully wrap my brain around before I saw it. So I thought you guys might like to see what it looks like, too. My apologies for the shaky video, which comes courtesy of my lovely husband skiiing beside me while trying to hold our tiny flip-cam steady.

On Saturday afternoon, at the beginning of low-angle rescue training at Whitetail, the patroller leading the training session found that the kit full of ropes and pulleys and anchors used for low-angle rescues hadn’t been packed up properly.

“I would expect this to always be packed properly and ready to use,” he told the group. “But things are never how you expect them to be, are they?”

Low-angle rescue training on Saturday at Whitetail.

In January 2011, I never expected I’d tear my ACL on my first day of ski-and-toboggan (S&T) training, and that I’d spend the season limping around the ski-patrol clinic in a blue windbreaker rather than learning fun skiing stuff with my husband and my friends. I never expected I’d end the season jealously coveting their red jackets instead of earning my own.

I never expected I’d spend March learning how to make my quadriceps muscles on my injured leg work again after surgery, or that I would spend weeks in physical therapy working on agility drills intended to make me less afraid of one of my great passions in life.

I never expected that I’d get to ski on the Fourth of July, only two days after I was medically approved to ski again, and never expected that I would totally forget about my knee for hours at a time, thanks to diversions such as crazy, costumed skiers partaking in mid-summer snowball fights.

Your brain cannot worry about your knee and pose with a dude in a skin-tight tiger costume at the same time.

I never expected that I’d carefully coordinate my ski-patrol training for December, clearing my work schedule for a couple weeks to let me crank out my training early in the season, only to experience the warmest December on record, leading to Whitetail’s latest-ever opening day.

I never expected I’d then join this year’s candidate class in their regular, every-Saturday training schedule, and that I’d leave Steve alone in our new home in Virginia Beach for most of January to accommodate that schedule. I never expected that I’d spend weeks working on frustrating, seemingly simple drills intended to work out all my bad habits, like sitting in the backseat during my turns and pole-planting at all the wrong times, before getting to touch a sled, and that I’d spend hours on rainy weeknights working with a team of generous, talented instructors to master those drills. Also unexpected: The way I’d have to overcome my own perfectionism and impatience along the way.

I never expected that this more-rigorous path would be so rewarding, and that mastering those simple drills would so drastically increase my confidence in my skiing, and in myself. I never expected that running a sled would feel so natural and simple—thanks, of course, to the fact that I spent weeks mastering those drills.

My first day working with sleds was actually much easier than I expected.

And I have to be honest and tell you that I never expected that I’d get my red coat last Saturday. I spent the morning learning to run a sled through the bumps, which you do by guiding the toboggan through the troughs of the moguls while you slide forward and backward through the troughs on your skis. I picked it up fairly quickly, and got great feedback from the instructors I was working with, so I knew I wasn’t far off. Still, it was a happy surprise when my name was called with two other patrollers, and I got to trade in my candidate jacket for a bright red patroller’s coat. Also a surprise: The fact that Steve had purchased a vest for me months earlier, and had even gotten me an NSP nametag and pin to put on it. The best part: The real victory was mastering the skills, and overcoming all the obstacles that stood in my way. In the end, the coat was just icing on the (red velvet) cake.

Shiny new jacket.

My awesome new vest. Yes, I am holding an ice axe (which is another story for another day).

Oh, and one more thing: I never expected to respond to my first wreck as a full patroller while playing with my friends on Whitetail’s expert terrain on Sunday. A 10-year-old boy had hurt his lower leg while taking a spill during a ski lesson, and his instructor called for help after they skied to the bottom of the trail. I’ve responded to lots of wrecks previously, but never with the ability to pull a sled after providing medical attention. I’d expected—or at least hoped—that my first one would be simple and straightforward, on Whitetail’s easiest terrain. Instead, it was on a part of the hill that required a snowmobile to pull the sled (along with a patroller in the handles) across a flat stretch between the expert terrain and the clinic. It was totally not what I expected—but it was totally fine.

When I started my OEC (ski-patrol medical) training in August 2010, I couldn’t have imagined things would go down the way they did. So it’s true that things are never how you expect them to be. But I choose to believe they happen exactly as they’re meant to.

So, this happened:

Pictured above: Me wearing a coat that doesn’t say “candidate” on it. I passed, and can now officially say I’m a ski patroller! I’ll write a longer post with details as soon as I can steal a few minutes to breathe during an unusually busy work week, which might be later Monday, or might be Wednesday. But as a teaser: I learned how to pull down a sled in the bumps, which is awesome and challenging and maybe the best workout I’ve ever had. The feeling of doing that well—which is to say, the feeling of having *earned* that red coat—is the only feeling in the world better than actually getting to wear it. (As you can tell by my gigantic grin, getting the coat is pretty rad, too).

You may recall that back in December, I posted about participating in the 100K Vertical Challenge at Whitetail. The event was slated to be held on Jan. 9. Thanks to our crazy non-winter, the event had to be postponed until Feb. 13, which leads me to post about it again now.

First, I know that you’re shocked—shocked!—to hear that Steve and I have signed up for another nutty endurance challenge. On Feb. 13, we will join 23 other crazy skiers and boarders to attempt to ski 100,000 vertical feet in one day—roughly 107 runs at Whitetail—as part of the first annual 100k Vertical Challenge. The event aims to raise funds for and awareness of the Two Top Mountain Adaptive Sports Foundation, a nonprofit adaptive sports program that services wounded warriors in the nearby Baltimore/Washington region, as well as civilian athletes with a wide range of disabilities.

Instead of describing why I feel this cause is so important, I’d like to show you. I dare you to watch this video of Todd Love, a Marine who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, on an adaptive snowboard and not get at least a little weepy:

There are two ways to donate: either with a flat donation, or by pledging to donate a certain amount based on the number of runs we complete. Since it’s a new and relatively low-tech event, you donate to our campaign by simply making a direct donation via the Two Top website (http://www.twotopadaptive.org/), then letting us know you’ve done so (so we can thank you and brag to our fellow participants). If you’d rather pledge on a per-run basis, all you need to do now is let us know how much you’d like to pledge per run. Then, after the event, we’ll let you know how many runs we completed, so you know how much to donate via the website. In either case, if you would prefer to mail a check, send it to: Two Top Mountain Adaptive Sports Foundation, Inc., 10914 Claylick Rd. Mercersburg, PA 17236.

Thanks for any support you can offer, financial or emotional.

Several years ago, I read a really fabulous essay in some long-lost running book about how one woman’s relationship to running shifted and changed through the decades of her life. In high school, running was a source of excitement for her. After college, it was a source of intense focus and competition (this particular woman was an Olympic-trials qualifier in the marathon). In her 30s and early 40s, running became a peaceful escape from the chaos of motherhood. The specifics changed, but the relationship was a constant.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that essay recently, as my own relationship with running is morphing into something more relaxed than it had been even a few months ago. When I started this blog in 2009, I was training for the National Half-Marathon, and used long, hard runs to regain a sense of control over my life and confidence in myself after moving to a new city and forging a new career path. Running was my release—from family emergencies, from a fear that my choice to become a freelance writer wouldn’t amount to anything—and I used each workout to remind me that I was fierce and strong. It was a different type of running from the long-distance escapes from loneliness and fear of deployment I’d experienced in Florida, which was different from the phases of my life and my running that came before it.

Me beaming after the National Half-Marathon in 2009.

I assumed that when I recovered from the various injuries that have stumped my running progress over the past couple years, I would be ready to go full-bore again, training for a warm-up half marathon, busting my half-marathon PR a few months later and finally tackling a marathon finish a little closer to four hours than my previous attempts. And in fact, my knee feels 100 percent again, with my ACL reconstruction surgery a year behind me (happy birthday, little ACL!).

But instead, I kind of stopped caring as much about my pace and weekly mileage, and instead started focusing on other goals—the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim earlier this year, ski-patrol ski-and-toboggan training now. I’m still running, but my relationship to running is different.

Rather than using my runs to test my limits and build my strength, I’m using them to help my body recover and my mind relax. My regular workout: A five-mile run on the beach. No pace goals, no intervals—just a simple, relaxed five-mile run on the beach. The sand isn’t always packed, and sometimes, when I glance down at my Garmin, I see that my slog through the deep sand is clocking in at 10:30-minute-mile pace—and I don’t care. When I start, my quads and glutes are usually still screaming from whatever skiing I most recently did. By the time I finish, my muscles and mind are both happy and chilled out.

When I’m in Silver Spring, I use my group runs to chat and catch up with the friends I don’t see quite as much, not to push myself my trying to keep up with runner-friends who are faster than me.

So right now, running is less of a challenging but fulfilling teacher and more a kind, compassionate friend, the “come as you are” of my current workout rotation.

How could I not feel relaxed, with a view like this?

Once the ski season’s done, I’m sure that relationship will shift again. But for now, I’m taking a lot of comfort in the knowledge that I have a friend who will always be there for me, and somehow is always able to provide exactly what I need.

How has your relationship with running shifted through the years?