Richard has taught me to ski almost from scratch in the past 3 days, so today he started teaching me the second discipline: nordic-style cross country skiing. Now, I actually think that this type of skiing is a bit dishonest, however as I started to overtake Richard in the mid-afternoon, I am liking it! So, this cross country skiing lark is basically skiing, but with infinitely narrow skis, that are stuck to your toes and generally follow groves in the snow that a huge machine has made – hence being dishonest, i.e. you don’t need to be able to turn or stay in a straight line because the grooves keep you on the straight and narrow. This is all very fine until a) the grooves go round a corner and I don’t and b) the grooves stop and again I don’t! The former is not too bad as I learnt quickly to lean inwards, but the latter I didn’t really get the hang of, so just fell over.
Nevertheless I have aching arms, aching shoulders and sore knees (from falling over) and we are back to downhill skiing tomorrow – yesterday I just about managed a few parallel turns, so tomorrow ….. who knows!
