Somehow on a conference call at work today, one of my teammates described me as “one of those extreme sports guys.” I sort of dismissed it, but I can see his point. Doing the stuff that I and other ultrarunners do is definitely out of the normal range of most people. I sort of forgot about the statement and went about my day.
I went for a run at Hyland Lake Park across the street from my office in Bloomington, MN (I’m traveling this week). It’s a nice park with some good rolling hills and some great scenery. One trail takes you up behind a ski jump. I had to take 2 pictures of it and stitch them together just to get the whole thing in one picture. It’s a massive structure. It just keeps going up and up. It is easily more than 50 feet taller than the next closest tree. On top of that, its sits up on a huge steep hill. I found this site that states it’s 70 meters high, that’s almost 230 feet in the air!!!
This big ski jump got me thinking about the extreme sports statement that my co-worker made earlier in the day. Extreme is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, running 50 or 100 miles is out there, but rocketing down this thing with ski’s strapped to your feet and only a helmet for protection, that’s EXTREME!!