Hooked on the Winter Teva Mountain Games

Skin a ridge ski mountaineering Credit: Liam Doran, Vail Resorts

Thrill seeker? Adventure hunter? Endurance junkie? Self-described ADD athlete who can't slog through the same fitness regimen without mixing it up? Not that I'm trying to categorize anyone, including myself, but some of the events featured at the first-ever Winter Teva Mountain Games stretch far beyond my Ironman-trained mind. It's one thing to swim, bike and run all in a day's work, but it's an entirely different monster to pursue the Games' snowy sports.

Ski mountaineering? Snow biking--and not the kind you can rent at Vail's Adventure Ridge? Climbing on an apparatus that looks far more complex than an indoor climbing wall? Ultimate Mountain Challenge that I'm construing as the Games' answer to Ironman? My legs and lungs hurt reading the descriptions alone. I might consider myself good on skis, but take them off and plop me in the snow, and I'm a disaster. Let's just say that the boot run, which could be considered one of the easier, more fun events to participate in minus the Tough Mudder-like obstacles, could render me helpless, and hurt--I'm just that clumsy.

Yet there's something about these endurance events that make me want to overlook the clumsiness, the burning sensation that's bound to appear in several if not all of the challenges I've eyed, and the fear of finishing last, and focus on the intensity and thrill that I can only assume coincides with this inaugural event. It might be a little tough to take on the six events I shared at buzz.snow.com with my non-altitude trained legs, but I'm willing to try anyway (anyone can participate). As long as I can find a flight. I guess I better start looking...and then training.


Photo courtesy of Winter Teva Mountain Games, taken by Liam Doran, Vail Resorts.