Race day morning I think, just stay in the moment, which is a great thought, but how is the question. I haven’t raced in four years. I have only trained one day. My mind and body no longer know race day, which was an enigma on the best of times. During my career, I tried to convince myself that I’d made a mistake before going through the start, thereby forcing myself to play catch up—no time to think. Other times, I raced to the first gate hoping to find the rhythm, but now I had so many questions. Where did I sit with the competition? How fast could I go? I catalogued the times that I’d really been in the moment these last four years—just one entry. After surgery, my stomach felt about to burst. I had tried to distract myself from the pain. Analyze That on TV didn’t work. De Niro and Crystal couldn’t distract me, but pain wouldn’t help me achieve the moment I needed.

I remember my first race in a monoski. That day at Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire my world had shrunken to just the racecourse. It was classic fight or flight. I couldn’t ski well enough to go fast, yet wanted to qualify for Nationals. I didn’t know how fast I need to go, just faster than I’d ever gone. I didn’t want to embarrass myself—didn’t want to be last. Instead of running toward something, I ran away from disgrace and won the first run by seven seconds. It worked that day. Today, I’m in the same position. I don’t know how fast I need to go. I don’t want to embarrass myself. Maybe it will work again. Nobody expects me to win. I have no expectations and only one fear. I don’t want to embarrass myself.

Yesterday’s sunny, fifty-degree temperatures have turned wintery. Snow blows in shards. The sun hides behind a fortress of grey clouds. This is ski racing—stripping down while the wind funnels snow in my face. I fight the cold with movement, hoping to keep the chill and my nerves separate. It was a dance I’d learned long ago, bouncing around at the start. Someone always asks if I am cold. No, but I can’t stop moving.

This is a pro-style race—two identical courses side by side—a whittling of the field down to one winner, but first we need to qualify the top sixteen. Four from each course qualify from first run. Four from each that didn’t advance in the first run, make it from the second one. Three bumps segment the course. In years past they’d been legitimate pro bumps, with square front faces and drops-offs of at least four feet. This year’s bumps qualified as rolls. We’d catch a little air, but not the spine shortening jumps of the past. In part, that’s why I’d agreed to come. When I inspected the course, I checked out the rolls and pushed ten to twenty feet up from each to check out the line—to really know where I was going. There were five turns above the top bump, then the six most technical and important turns before the second bump. I knew I needed to ski well there to carry speed onto the flatter five turns. The four turns into the finish were straighter on the red course than the blue. It’s not so much that they were straighter as that there was that fall-away on the blue side. I’d raced and trained hundreds of runs on that hill at Winter Park. Every time that fall-away turn, just up from the finish, was one of the most important.

I had inspected the course knowing what I needed to do, then the start gates open and everything moves too fast. The course comes at me. I go over the first bump and fall low on the line before I remember that these are the important turns. Instead of finishing my turn at the gate, I start it there, hoping somehow to get back on line. The second bump comes up just as I finish my turn. I think, that’s no way to carry speed onto the flats, and then admonish myself for wasting time thinking. The fall-away comes as a surprise. I know it’s there, but the run is noisy in my head. I can’t turn my mind off and can’t get it to focus. Even though four men from each course would qualify from the first run, they send us all to the start again without any knowledge of the times. I worry that I didn’t qualify on the first run and that if I crash on the second run that I might not make the actual race. I might waste the whole trip here.

The red course looked faster on inspection and my run feels better. I hit the important turns and carry more speed onto the flats. The announcer still doesn’t call out times. I have no idea how I’ve done and worry that I won’t be one of the sixteen. Finally, Erik Peterson, the coach calls out the qualifiers. My name is about eighth or ninth. Was I in the middle of the pack? Did the people called first beat me, or did the ones after me? The list confuses me because fast people seemed spread throughout.

Almost all of the competitors are current athletes, many just returning from World Cups in Japan. I’d thought that some of my contemporaries would return. They didn’t. I race these kids and while there might be some mystique left from my career, age tempers whatever effect it might have. At the top, I learn that I qualified fourth—the fastest monoskier of the group, but I don’t feel secure. Still trying to achieve the moment, I tell myself, one round at a time, but it’s hard to quiet my mind.

I win both runs of my round of sixteen. I wonder who’s the one to beat. All weekend I’ve been trying to time the start. A display counts down from 5 to go. There seems to be a little lag between go and the gates opening. It’s strange that the element that I concentrated on becomes my undoing.

As I wait for my round of eight match, the crew attempts to get the start gates right. Finally they are right. The starter asks, “Both racers ready?” We say, “Yes,” and I look up to see the gates already open. I’m not sure if my mind drifted, but I know that I’m behind. I don’t catch up during the run. Anger grips me at the finish. I want to hit something. In qualifying I’ve proved that I can ski with these guys, but I might have just thrown it away. The announcer still doesn’t announce any times. I figure I need to go as fast as I can.

This time the countdown is at 2 when I first notice it moving. My anger flares again. Maybe this is what I need. I charge out of the gate, but when I reach the important turns I fall on my hip. Even though I bounce up quickly, I’ve lost all speed. I’m behind again. On the flats I make up time, but there is only so much room. I go straight off the last bump—too straight it turns out. I miss a gate. My day ends in the round of eight.

I entered this race because I wanted the thrill of racing, to see if I could still ski with these guys, and to make some money. I experienced the thrill, but I’m not sure that I ever made peace with it. I never found my place within the thrill. The race never slowed down for me, but it was still exciting to get into the gate again. In qualifying, I proved that I can still ski with these guys. The thrill and my skill level might indicate that I should race some more, but the reason I stopped is the reason I won’t race more. My heart still isn’t in it the way that it should be.

I probably came to this race more to make money than I wanted to admit and there’s probably some poetic justice to the way it turned out. I ended up dead even for the weekend. The cost of gas, the entry fee, and my 10% donation to One Revolution’s wheelchair donation exactly equaled the $330 that I won. To continue the poetic significance, or at least what I’m calling poetic significance, ten percent of my $330 winnings is $33. Originally, I thought it wasn’t enough. I had visions of donating $200 to $400, but then I noticed the 3’s—the threes that I look for when I get on a chair lift and the ones in the date that I hope to summit Kili. 3/13/09. Maybe $33 isn’t much, but it’s significant.