Schuss, Laddie
By Mitch Berg
Side note: I love Cross Country skiing. A personal goal for the next year or two – try Nordic Biathlon. Skis ‘n guns – does it get any better?
Yeah, but only rarely.
But I digress. JB Doubtless – a self-admitted hockey player – notes:
Cross country skiers look like the walking dead.
In slow motion.
Is there a dorkier looking activity you can perform in public?
Hm. Lemme think:
I dunno. Is there?
(Read the whole series, naturally)
January 25th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Y’know why biathlon uses a gun instead of a knife? Because you’re never sneaking up on anybody via cross-country skiing. You can hear those guys coming from at least a mile away! If I ever started breathing that hard I’d stop.
January 25th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Out east they usually held summer biathlons, essentially a cross country 5K run coupled with some shooting. It’s a good way to get started. You’ll be surprised how hard the sport is once you realize how much you have to control your heart and breathing after running to make a good shot.
If you get even moderately serious, the rifle, skis and other equipment aren’t cheap. Even the low end Anshutz is around $1800, but the Fortner action is better and that runs about $3200. And the used ones aren’t much cheaper.
As to dorkier activities in public, how about speed walkers? At least there’s some grace in cross country skiing. Strangely enough, the better the cross country skier, the more graceful, but the better the speed/power walker the dorkier they look.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
And how dorky would some of those speed walkers look with a rifle over their shoulder?
When the winter olympics roll around I never pay attention to the cross-country skiing events, but biathalon gets my attention.
Maybe some other sports could take a cue from that. For example, crew would be a lot more interesting with a small cannon and on-shore or floating targets to nail.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Nordeaster:
Your version of crew would be one of my favorite sports, and I don’t care for many.
*stands*
*applauds*