By John Wood
John Wood has been an Alaska resident since age 11. A few years ago, he wrote this fine first-person piece about his life in skiing to date. A year ago, in these pages, he penned this essay, “This is Where the Cowboy Rides Away,” about the end of his competitive cross-country ski career at age 75, in which he went out with multiple medals at World Masters in Seefeld.
Wood here provides an epilogue to last spring’s piece: What happened after that final race and final podium, or, “back again” is an important part of “there and back again,” and sometimes not a short part.
Readers interested in submitting comparable essays on life, training, or life and training should be in touch: info (at) nordicinsights.news.
By midday on Friday, March 24, 2023, my long distance race was over. Since this race was the last race of the day, all of the World Masters 2023 races were now completed. Yay! The proportion of snow cover — more accurately ice cover — on the ski trails had receded to less than 50 percent, and temperatures had risen into the low 50s F again today. No snow remained on the ground in town.
I had made my way back to the hotel with my skis, and as I wandered down to the hotel entrance I ran into the Norwegian (Kjell Johnsen) who asked me, in his halting English, if I was going to go to the awards ceremony at 1 p.m. It had originally been scheduled for 2, but had apparently just been rescheduled to one hour earlier.
Oh gosh, I wanted to go get my third-place bronze medal and I’d better hurry! The bus schedule was not favorable, so I walked fast (25 minutes) to the stadium. When I arrived, I found that there were a few people at the classic distance awards ceremony, and NOBODY from the U.S. there to take my picture! The other folks were packing and leaving for home, tired of slush skiing, and those who still remained in town apparently thought today’s awards ceremony would be at 5:30 p.m. like on all the other race days. Oh well, I got my bronze medal for the “distance race,” and still felt damn proud!
Later, I took the bus back to the stadium to go to the closing banquet, and as I stepped inside for credential check there was a rumble of thunder and the skies opened up… heavy rain for about an hour! I grabbed a long table for the Alaskans who remained (many had left after skiing their distance skate race the day before), and we had one hell of a good time. Beer, wine, loud conversations, whiskey, good food, music, speeches, more music, more speeches, then dancing.
The Alaskans’ energy levels began to nosedive early, so we all said our goodbyes and I was off to the hotel and asleep by 11 p.m. Then up at 5:30 a.m. to catch the 6:45 chartered bus, which took us to the Munich airport. Uneventful bus ride, but then the fun started! Again!
First off, I had a 1.5-hour wait to get checked in by Icelandair, then another half-hour wait to get through the security line. After the plane was fully boarded and the doors closed, they announced that there would be a several-hour ground delay due to circling aircraft. There was to be a general strike at the Munich airport the next day so all of the airlines had added planes to clear out waiting passengers and freight. My flight finally took off, and arrived in Reykjavík around 8 p.m. So far so good, except that my connecting flight to Seattle had left at 7!
The 30 or so other affected passengers and myself were rebooked on the next flight to Seattle, which was the same time the next day, and then bussed one hour into town for the night. I got dropped off at a bus stop, then got to drag my luggage about a quarter-mile to the hotel, only to stand in line for another half-hour to get a room. By the time I found a snack bar that was open and got a cold sandwich and back to the room, it was 12:30 in the morning.
I was up six hours later trying to get my reservations from Seattle to Anchorage straightened out, which took hours on the phone. Even then the airlines refused to check my luggage through to Anchorage, so I would need to pick everything up in Seattle and go back through security again in order to check it through to Anchorage. Oh well…
That afternoon the bus took us 31 tired travelers back to the airport, where we had to wait in line to check luggage, go through security, then yet more security to get to the gate. Nothing else to do, right?
When the 7-hour flight arrived in Seattle, the big wait started again… first 50 minutes for luggage, then another 15 for customs, then a long shuttle/walk out to the Alaska Air gate. It took roughly two hours to make it from touchdown at SeaTac to gate N15, where boarding for the Anchorage flight was already underway. But I made it. Yay!
It took me roughly 50 hours from when I boarded the airport shuttle bus in Seefeld to when I arrived in Anchorage. But pity the poor folks from Fairbanks… they had to wait another full day in Anchorage to get a seat on a flight up to Fairbanks, as the planes were already full with families coming back from spring break.
Well, the excitement wasn’t quite over… I got to Anchorage, but my skis didn’t! They were put on a later flight, so they were delivered to my home about noon the next day.
Over the course of the afternoon and evening on the Icelandair flight, and then in Seattle, I felt stuffiness in my nose, then started coughing when I got home. I tested myself for Covid in the morning and was positive! Oh crap! I immediately quarantined myself and got a prescription for Paxlovid, but not soon enough, so my wife Cathy caught Covid from me. Double crap!
We both managed to suffer thru our bouts with Covid that week, and then immediately got to leave for Nebraska for seven weeks to watch our grandchildren while our son Chris recovered from surgery and his wife Kristin worked at the local hospital nursing. That is another story!
In summary, the 2023 World Masters Championship trip, from start to finish, was an epic gift that kept on giving… to well beyond the finish!
