Alas it’s hard to believe but here it’s Wednesday and I’m sitting in my study. Why? Well to put it sadly, skiing is now over for the 2020/2021 season and it is time to give the summary of results…
While the actual awards ceremony will be in later this spring (and will not likely be covered in the national media – that being saved for highlighted activities of a more impactful fashion), it seems appropriate to give you the final tallies now. It is important to note that among the three grandpas that skied together, there is only one that really is competitive – often staying out into the lunch hour (thus holding up the eating – but not necessarily the drinking – for the others) to get in extra runs (unmonitored, but because we are trusting souls and he is a medical doctor, we have to take him at his word – if he was still practicing, he’d probably be the national director of public health and the pandemic would be long gone, but I digress).
Just a reminder about the codes/terms:
Runs = the number of times down the hill (no matter how long it takes)
Vm’s = this relates to the number of vertical metres skied from the top of each run to the ski lift (this is not to be confused with the amount of snow that is covered which will be reported as Distance) – different runs may have quite different configurations, but the Vm will be the same.
Avg-Max: each day one’s maximum speed achieved on the fastest run is recorded – the average of these speeds is computed by totaling the speeds and dividing by the number of days — speed is in kilometres per hour
Distance = this is the amount of ground that is covered (much like when recording bicycle travel or jogging or swimming) and each run can have varying distance depending on how a skier traverses it. For example, the Grandfather’s Run is 5 km long…
Days = the number of days an individual put on their skis and skied at least one run…
Bold print = winner of that category for this season…
To protect the innocent each individual is identified by their code name:
• Days:
the Saint – 44
gw – 42
RAR – 36
HW – 34
• Runs:
the Saint – 433
gw – 414
RAR – 410
HW – 364
• Vm’s:
RAR – 209,923
gw – 207,454
the Saint – 198,762
HW – 175,181
• Distance:
gw – 1,057.36
the Saint – 918.10
HW – 794.30
RAR (no data: cannot afford the $0.99 app)
• Average Max Speed:
gw – 68.28
HW – 60.33
the Saint – 49.71
RAR (no data: no app)
• Overall most graceful skier:
HW – by a wide margin (although he has only be skiing for 80 years, he literally glides down the mountain, no matter the run…as poetic on skis as his late brother was with the English language)
the Saint – by a significant margin over the other two grandpas
RAR – marginally better than the last place occupant (biased judging favoured old age, he also was involved in accidents with the other two grandpas and remained unscathed)
gw – someone has to come fourth (but at least he has really good skis)
Have a great spring – hopefully we will see some sanity emerge at some point… and don’t forget you are invited for some moments in the 2021/2022 season…
As always,
g.w.