Wolf Spirit: A Story of Healing, Wolves and Wonder by Gudrun Pflüger

Author:Gudrun Pflüger [Pflüger, Gudrun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771601283
Publisher: RMB | Rocky Mountain Books
Published: 2015-11-26T07:00:00+00:00

ON EQUAL FOOTING

WINTER 1997

I throw my arms up in the air. I’ve just crossed the finish line of the biggest cross-country event on the North American continent, in first place. I’ve won the American Birkebeiner for the second time now, following my victory last year. I love the hospitality of the people here; the rolling course through the dense Northwoods of Wisconsin, home to wolves, is also very appealing. Everything about this race is perfectly tailored to me. At the mass start, the elite women are grouped in our own wave; that means we are allowed to start two minutes after the elite men and two minutes before all the others leave the starting line, a big advantage. We don’t get lost in the crowd of strong male skiers and thus can have our own women’s race. It still happens that the best of us women catch up to some of the elite men ahead of us. This is a skate-style race and the groomed trails in the forest are quite narrow in places. Passing is very difficult. But every time, something happens that is incomprehensible for us European female skiers. As soon as the men hear us coming up behind them, they call to each other, “The ladies are coming, get off the trail!” And then they make room for us. I think about the hot-blooded jostling for position during European mass starts. Highlights are the Marcialonga in Italy and the Engadin Ski Marathon in Switzerland. Both are extremely fast skate-ski races with a lot of prize money. At those starts, the elbows fly and you hear the cracking of fragile poles breaking all around you. But even at the mass starts of mountain running races I always notice that quite a few men don’t appreciate being overtaken by a “weaker” woman. Many of the ambitious weekend runners have a personal goal: be faster than the fastest woman. In a mass start, a few minutes after the starting gun goes off, the men are typically ahead, but the longer the race lasts, the more of my male colleagues I pass. Is it because men simply have more power and thus get away from the starting line more explosively than women? Or is it because they overestimate themselves and then have to ease off?

The fact is that more than in any other type of sports, women come closest to the performance level of men in endurance disciplines. We are born endurance athletes. Pregnancy and birth require a lot of stamina and patience, as do years of childrearing or the millennia of being responsible for gathering berries and other food. We have great strength in us. The she-wolf reminds us of this.

This year there is a world premiere at the American Birkebeiner. For the first time in the history of the Worldloppet, the prize money for the women is just as much as it is for the men. I receive a cheque for US$7,500. It’s a huge amount of money for me, even if I have to send half my winnings to the IRS.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.