[NMCCSC] Fwd: Renewal time

[NMCCSC Membership]

Happy Fall, everyone! And for those of you who have already renewed your
membership to NMCCSC, we thank you.

If you haven't, though, the easiest way is to *renew online*
<https://www.nmccscmembership.org/>.

Are you itching to get your skis out? I know I am.

In the meantime, for your reading pleasure, an excerpt about our sport (and
the Olympics, to be sure) from *NYT Magazine
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/31/magazine/winter-olympics-cross-country-skiing.html>:*

*Cross-country skiing is the least glamorous, least pyrotechnic, least
watchable of the major Olympic sports. It is notoriously, almost inhumanly,
exhausting — a brutally sustained nonthrill. Its longest races drag on for
more than two hours. Even the sport’s greatest champions, over the course
of an event, average speeds that would be legal in a school zone. In the
racers’ slowest patches, struggling up terrible hills, schoolchildren could
probably outrun them. Cross-country skiing is where the elegant majesty of
winter sports goes to die an excruciatingly drawn-out death.*

*So why would anyone do it? And why on earth would we ever watch?*

*Because cross-country skiers are existential heroes in goggles and tights.
Instead of offering us distraction — the glittery melodrama of figure
skating or the quirky novelty of curling — cross-country skiers lean right
into a bleak truth: We are stranded on a planet that is largely indifferent
to us, a world that sets mountains in our path and drops iceballs from
50,000 feet and tortures our skin with hostile air. There is no escaping
it; the only noble choice is to strap on a helmet and slog right in.
Cross-country skiing expresses something deep about the human condition:
the absolute, nonnegotiable necessity of the grind. The purity and sanctity
of the goddamn slog.*

Have a wonderful week, and hope to see you soon.

-Nancy Shane
Membership Chair
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.swcp.com/pipermail/nmccscegroup/attachments/20221015/6f40a610/attachment.htm>