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Right motives for skiing
John and his wife Bonnie live in Moab, Utah, where they spend much of their time hiking the red rock canyons.
It was the middle of my competitive skiing career, late January in 1965, when I left where I was stationed in the United States Army at Fort Carson, Colorado, and arrived in Germany to begin 18 days of training to represent the Army in the World Military Ski Championships, organized by the Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM). The competition was to be held that February in Switzerland.
The previous winter, I’d competed as a member of the US Olympic Nordic Combined Team (a combination of cross-country skiing and ski jumping), but my participation in the CISM would be a little different. I would be competing in a cross-country ski race, which also included carrying a rifle and shooting at stationary targets along the way (now called the biathlon).
Right away, it was clear to me that prayer was going to be a significant part of my training and performing, especially because I had never before skiied while carrying a rifle. Most concerning at the time, however, was the fact that my military assignments during the previous nine months had afforded me no opportunity for ski training of any kind—I was way out of shape! And 18 days seemed too short a time to get back in form to compete with athletes who had been training all year.
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