Notes from a Freshman: Shelby Ahrendt

6 months ago the word “college” felt like this big, foggy, cloud of unknown to my vulnerable, rookie, high-school-post-grad mind. I’d been living in a little slice of forever that consisted of school, assorted sports competitions, summer vacation, jump up a grade, and repeat. But there I was, September 1st, moving 300 tons of personal belongings into an unairconditioned Kittlesby dorm with a bunch of nameless faces, bubbling with a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and naïve boldness, and mostly just feeling very sweaty due to the fact that our dorm topped out at upwards of 1000 degrees in the afternoon heat. I felt like a clean sheet of paper, ready to scrawl an entirely new story upon, and hoping to fill a good portion of it with adventures as a member of the St. Olaf Nordic ski team.

The majority of my ski training in that first week at school consisted of getting lost on a run in the Carlton Arb and nearly getting hit by a semi roaring down Highway 3 while riding my rusty, clattering mountain bike. Needless to say, I was in need of some severe guidance, if not to improve my workouts at least to keep me from getting killed. As if they could subconsciously feel my need, upperclassmen Nels and Amelia offered to take me and another freshie Graham on a rollerski. I was stoked. The combination of meeting new people plus skiing, for me at least, is prime. Nels and Amelia showed us all the important aspects of roller-skiing in Northfield; the deadly train-tracks that will eat any newbie roller alive, the gaps in the road crossing the river between the cement of the bridge and asphalt of the road (where I experienced a first-hand face plant after catching both tips in the deadly chasm) and the Norwegian House, where Nels fed us some very hard and crispy chocolate chip cookies he was extremely proud of baking.

A few weeks later I got to go on my first 3 hour St. Olaf rollerski OD with skier girls, Paige and Kelsey. It was quite long and flat and there was a horrifically smelly barn halfway through the workout that I hope to never encounter again. I was introduced to “Lil-Sebastian”, the famous miniature-pony living on a farm down the road and I am proud to say that I think we are finally on a first name bases, or at least he looked at me once when I was hollering and whistling at him from behind the fence.


Fall ended with a fabulous trip to West Yellowstone Montana, and then the season started for reals. I had a little mishap with my toe and ended up putting in a lot of hours on the stationary bike and flailing around in the pool, but after that got pretty much resolved, race weekends were a flurry of driving and skiing like crazy and then there was USCSAs in beautiful Lake Placid which involved 4 races in 5 days and was a total blast. You just kind of always have that post-workout feeling of tired, happy energy. It’s great. I admire how hard everyone works and I feel blessed to have been able to be a part of such a driven team of athletes.  


 
 

And I think somewhere in the season, I had some revelations about skiing and life: I realized there’s a balance between living in the moment yet having enough time to reflect and somehow, miraculously, skiing allows you achieve this. There’s a certain sort of ‘meditation’ I would fall into during those three-hour skis under perfect, blue Montana skies. The pounding of my heart and harsh squeak of pole baskets against cold snow created a personal soundtrack that lulled me into a world of complete synchronization. It’s a unique mindset, in which you are so wholly in the ‘now’ yet can see how far you’ve come, and work towards an overarching goal, whether you are looking at improving objective results or just pure adventure, which I believe are both equally important.

Skiing is also about building connections. It’s about sharing your little slice of forever with people you may never know otherwise. It’s about laughing and dancing in a too small Blue Spruce kitchen that somehow expands to fit everyone’s eccentricities into a complete whole. It’s about working harder than you ever thought you could—getting to that point of exhaustion, and then going further. And the truth is, working that hard, as a team. For a team. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences in life. Sharing your goals with a group makes them just a little more realistic and tangible, and sets you on an infinitely higher level to achieve them.

And I found that in a way, my slice of forever never ended when I started college. My paper wasn’t totally clean and erased, like I’d thought, but just had some black and white portions ready for a splash of color. According to my favorite rock climber Steph Davis, “The moment you are living in exists because of all the other moments you’ve lived and all the things you’ve done that have brought you to that place.” The pieces just build on each other, creating almost an infinitely great circle. And I think striving to fill your circle with worthwhile activities such as Nordic skiing, and building relationships with incredibly hard-working athletes is the best you can do. At least, this season left me with an incredible sense of satisfaction and happiness, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

- Shelby