The following weekend was our Wisconsin High School Championships on the hilly Timberland Hills course. I have a videotape of Ben's classical race start where he does the same jump/up-on-your toes double pole that he saw on the WC tape. He looks great and comes on like gang-busters for about 100 meters and then fades as though his race was already over. He had enthusiastic technique, but no endurance. He was 45th in a field of 74 that day.

The next day the freestyle tape reveals a segment on the last big hill one-half K form the finish. Ben saw and heard the spectators on the hill and turned up the V-1 gas at the bottom. It was a longer hill than he thought and he fades and fades to a crawl at the top where he takes a humorous, revealing and rather panic-stricken look back over his shoulder. He was 58th of 90 for the day.

But the bug had bitten. Ben went home saying he was giving up tennis, training all summer and going out for CC running in the fall just to get in shape for ski season. I was skeptical, but we sat down and hammered out a training plan. And by God, he followed through. He found a true love in cross-country skiing. He has put in hundreds of hours since then running and roller skiing. He rose from nothing to 3rd on his CC running team. He suffered snowless terrain until Christmas and has cheerfully thrashed the grassy, dirty thin snows of Madison since. His parents have to drag him off the trails and I have to plead with him to rest and not overtrain.

And what has all this gotten Ben? He is currently the second fastest J2 in Wisconsin and Minnesota and headed to Junior Olympics in New Hampshire. He ranks about sixth in the state of Wisconsin. All of the cheeseheads ahead of him are older than he, have attended Junior Olympics and 4 of the 5 won medals there. It 's a real tickle to have regional ski friends approach me at races and ask if I have heard of this new, hot, young skier from Madison who is burning up the tracks.

Lindsay has been skiing as a J2 in USSA qualifiers this season. Based on her early results, she has already made the Midwest team.

As the saying goes, "Skiers are made in summer." Lindsay's remarkable improvement has come largely due to her involvement in the Brochman-Wilson Summer Nordic Program. Kevin Brochman estimates that Lindsay has made 25% improvement over last year. The only other highschooler that has ever approached that growth according to Brochman was Matt Weier.