There was a moment today, as we traversed a ridge 2600m above sea level, when a skier immediately in front of Amund slipped. The fall was relatively innocuous; however, his ski became dislodged from its holster on his backpack, and everyone watched as the ski slid and then plummeted off the cliff to our right. Having watched as the ski flipped and spun, ricocheting off rocks and eventually disappearing off of a cliff a thousand feet below, Amund later told me that his butthole had never been smaller. Pierra Menta is scary, and can insight moments where everything in your being wants to clench. This race, we have both come to learn, is as much about how well you have trained your aerobic capacity as it is about your sphincter. There were a few times today when, with mine, I could probably have turned coal into a diamond.

“All I could imagine when I saw that ski falling was what an 80kg Norwegian would look like doing the same thing,” Amund told a group of us as we laughed and traded war stories with other skiers over lunch.

Both Amund and I knew we were in for a challenge on stage 3 of this wild race. With 2800m of vertical ahead, taking us up the iconic Grand Mont, and a mandatory equipment list that included carabiners and crampons, Amund and I decided to switch our strategy from the previous day. We would start conservatively, and ideally, with clearer minds and less fatigued legs, pick off teams later in the day and be better prepared to tackle the most technical climbing we had ever done.

From the outset, however, this strategy failed us. Having moved up enough in the General Classification to start in the 2nd wave of the day, only 3 minutes behind the best skiers, and in the mix with some very strong teams, we thought we would benefit from our starting position. However, the start, unlike the day before, was exactly the same as stage 1, and with 2 transitions in the first kilometer, Amund and I went from the front of the pack to the back. We didn’t want to start too hard, but coming out of the 2nd transition in dead last meant that skiers far better than us technically, but worse than us aerobically, would be in our way. Furthermore, the first climb of the day wasn’t a straightforward affair; you couldn’t simply pass a slower individual in front.

Skimo races, at least at this level, have devoted volunteers called “track setters.” Track setters wake up at the crack of dawn (they have to, as we started at 7:30 AM this morning) to ski segments of the course two abreast. In doing so, these devoted people set two racing lines in the snow that zigzag their way up the mountain. This is an invaluable task, as were it not for these track setters, racing skimo would be chaos. It is massively more taxing to break a track in fresh snow, and if there wasn’t a track, racing—particularly with a field this large and competitive—would be a traffic jam.

Despite this, when the gradient is steep and the snow is deep, these tracks can still create bottlenecks, making it nearly impossible to pass skiers during these segments. The main reason for these bottlenecks is kick turns. At the end of each zig, in order to zag, a skier has to awkwardly kick one ski out to the end of the line and then twist their other ski in the direction of the opposite line. The best skimoers can do this effortlessly; however, there is still a break in velocity, and when you have hundreds of skiers following that one skier in front, no matter how good everyone is at kick turns, the ripple effect of the slowing of that first skier creates a standstill further down the mountain.

So, there Amund and I found ourselves, moving like molasses as we looked way up the mountain to see skiers smoothly gliding along above. We both tried to make passes and take lines that hadn’t been set, but we ended up just looking like the imposters we are, eventually resigning ourselves to waiting impatiently and conserving more for later in the day. Man, I am glad I did.

Under bluebird skies, we knocked off white-capped peaks like they were dominoes. Because I had a lot left in the tank, I was skiing better than I ever had, and I was taking in as much as I could. The terrain we skied and the views we had were what postcards of the Alps are made of. Fans—who had to reach the tops of these peaks by skinning up themselves—revved chainsaws and cheered as if I were at the front of the peloton at the Tour. There was a point when I was skiing down this ridge where I thought, “This world of snow in front of me is my playground.” My skis were floating over bumps, through pristine powder, and down drops, and it felt like I was in a video game. The creativity, courage, and ingenuity of humans that got me to this place is wild, and if I could bottle up how I felt and sell it, I would either be getting billions from a pharmaceutical company or be on the FBI’s most wanted list.

This high did not last, though. On the final ascent of the day, Amund and I struggled immensely with getting our crampons on. The delays went from being funny to comical to worrisome. We are not great, but the combination of altitude, skiing hard for three consecutive days, and waking up at 5:30 every morning to get our equipment organized was starting to take its toll on our cognitive function. Then, as we were skinning up for the final time, my ski slipped, I planted my left pole to stop myself from falling, and I felt my shoulder seemingly pop out of its socket. I’m no doctor, so I don’t know what I did, but the sensation that accompanied it was frightening. Last year, I broke my collarbone on this left side, almost a year ago to the day, at Milano-Turino, and being a cyclist and stupidly thinking, “Well, my clavicle doesn’t pedal the bike,” I did absolutely no strengthening of the area post-surgery. Therefore, my shoulders are weak, and unlike cycling, you need your shoulders to skimo, and I have never skied this hard or for this long once, let alone three days in a row.

I don’t think I dislocated it, as I was able to feel it slip back into place, but the pain was substantial, and the fear it brought on was significant. It wasn’t like this was happening while doing some free weights at the gym. I was standing on a 35-degree icy slope with a cliff below. I lost my nerve, and so did Amund. From that point on, we went from trying to race the race to thinking about how we could just survive. Queue the carabiners.

With this headspace, Amund and I entered our first carabiner sector. Neither of us had ever used a carabiner or a harness in our lives. We bought them at a local sports shop in Andorra, put them in our suitcases, and while looking over a manual on how to put them on at 6:00 AM this morning, we wore them for the very first time. Was this a responsible choice for two people who collectively father five children? Probably not. As we clipped into the rope that led us along a 50cm-wide rocky, exposed ridge at the top of Grand Mont, I tried to focus on Amund’s crampons dinging into the ice and rock in front of me and not the seemingly infinite drop on both sides.

We made it through, and my final descent was less about flow and pleasure and more about me thinking, “I am a father of two kids.” When you ski not to fall, especially on Skimo skis, you ski terribly. I did just that, and by the time we reached the finish line, we were both sore everywhere, exhausted, and a bit too eager to indulge in the free beer at the post-race finish tent.

One more day to go.