Cross-country skiing. Yeah, that's a good idea.

The only thing better than getting smacked by a blizzard one day is the next day watching a fat guy trying to balance on a pair of slick Popsicle sticks some people call cross-country skis.

What does this thing do?

And let’s use those other sticks, the poles, which in other parts of the globe qualify as spears, to try and offset that balance. Sounds like a safe way to get some exercise, right?

Wrong.

That fat guy is me. And Sweet Jeebus cross-country skiing after months of doing absolutely nothing but moving my own beer belly around is quite the difficult proposition.

Cue dream sequence here, because it all started 30-something years ago when I fancied myself an Olympic downhill gold medalist in Lake Placid or Sarajevo hanging out with the likes of the Mahre brothers.

I strapped on a pair of rusty, hand-me-down Sears-branded downhill skis – which in my mind were state-of-the-art Rossignols – and pushed myself down the sledding hill near my house. Now, the only choices at the bottom of this hill were a narrow passageway that led directly to the road, or a series of plate glass windows, closing in the living rooms of the neighbors in my complex.

So, an untrained, unsupervised 10-year-old on skis where the choices were road or glass. Fortunately or un-, my skiing days lasted as long as a couple of hours. The danger portion of this show wasn’t really my concern so much as the tightness of the leather ski boots that were clearly too small and the fact that I had to actually climb back up the hill carrying 700 pounds of awkward skiing apparatus when my stupid friends only had to carry light plastic sleds.

Dissolve back to present day (or close to it). Last summer my wife and I went to a yard sale looking for something to upcycle and sell for hefty profits when we came across a woman and her husband who were absolutely fed up with the New England winter. They were selling everything and moving straight to San Diego. It was at the end of the sale and we walked away with three sets of cross-country skis, three sets of poles, three pairs of boots and a snowsuit for $8. Know any other skiers who bought all their gear for $8? It would be a crime not to try this cross-country thing, right? And now that I’m 42, this adventure seemed much less knee-removing than downhill, especially after forming a new divot in the couch for six months after completing a century ride, which if you are unfamiliar, is a bike ride that lasts 100 miles with the intention of suffering you to death.

Stephski rocks the block in a recent blizzard.

Blizzard happens. Fat guy on skis. We drive to the nearest ‘nature’ area, Roger Williams Park, the Central Park of Providence, if you will. I strap on the waxed Popsicle sticks and attempted a right proper shussing. What I got was ethereal x-ray vision and suddenly I was able to see all the bones I was about to break and all the tendons and ligaments and all the other gristly bits that were surely going to snap and leave me in some hospital bed with a nursemaid directly imported from the East German women’s swim team, speaking of Olympics.

Sweet Christmas, what was I doing?!? Having fun and getting in shape, said Wifey. Oh. OK. I guess I’ll try it then. Dammit.

It’s kind of like running, Wifey said. Before she dragged me off the couch, she had a few chances to try this thing before I did. The blind leading the heavily cataracted. Move this, move that, shuss this, then shuss that. Move, slide, slide, poke, shuss, whoa!, balance, shuss, slide, pond!, slide, rocks, trees!

And this was on flat land.

Like a baby taking steps or Grandma with a new set of Slazengers on her walker, I crept along, listening to the skis sliding in the snow, the poles grasping at straws and my lungs screaming at me for not quitting smoking sooner than 15 years ago. Surely I must be mastering this thing, for I haven’t fallen once. Yet. No matter that the five-year-old next to me was walking faster than I was skiing, with her little plastic sled.

Show-off.

It wasn’t fair. She was growing up with active parents, who actually went outside occasionally and did stuff that people do.

End pity party.

Plus, I was already on to my next near-death experience. When I was heaving so much air into my lungs, I saw bright and blinding light, only to realize my sunglasses had fallen off and I was experiencing the same thing my fellow winter adventurers feel on Everest, snow-blindness.

“I… gotta… stop…” I said to Wifey, feeling like the asthmatic geek friend on Malcolm in the Middle. I took my time picking up my sunglasses. Go ahead, I said. I’ll catch up. No, that’s OK, I’ll wait for you.

Crap. Now I had to keep skiing. Can’t I just die alone, in peace?

As I was mentally writing my will, trying to keep my heart from bursting a valve and shooting blood out of one of my eyeballs, Wifey asks if I want to try a little hill. “Shhhure,” I said, like Moby breaching. So we herring-boned up this little slope, where that little school girl had already been up and down 900 times. Son of a…

There she goes again!

Wifey heads down, etching the tracks into the freshly fallen snow. Kids all around, sledding, smiling, laughing and playing with their parents. Don’t they now I’m about to die? I’m up. I release the tension on the poles, like letting out the clutch when the light turns green. I start sliding. In a good way. Faster. Faster. I’m screamin’ now. The girl passes me on the sled. What? No time for that, pay attention! Sliding faster. Balance! My knees creek and groan like an old battleship in a gale. My muscles scream out in the horror of the unknown. What’s happening to us? They seemed to say. What is that burning sensation???

My skis are straight, I get into a tuck as much as my beer belly will allow, my knees knock and I start pushing with my poles! Faster, faster, faster! Nine magnificent seconds later, I shuss to a safe stop – upright even – where Wifey has been waiting, doing our taxes.

In that nine seconds, that 75 feet of total skied travel and seven massive feet of elevation drop, naturally, I imagined, my very next skiing adventure would be jumping out of a helicopter onto the top of Whistler.

It’s the only natural progression.

I’ll see you Après Ski.

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