MARCH 4, 2021 – As my closest friends (and imaginary psychologist) know, for years my exercise regimen involves a weekly quota of a mile of vertical feet—stairs and hiking or skiing uphill. This works out to 750 feet a day, plus an extra 30 feet (called “leap feet”) per week. Much of my climbing occurs in “Little Switzerland,” a hilly golf course/ski park a mile from our house. I track my vertical progress without a phone app. To ease the mental effort, I count by 10-foot increments—10 feet being the standard vertical height of a residential staircase.
Toward my daily goal of 75 “flights” (750 feet), I ski up the backside of the ski hill I call “St. Moritz.” Each climb is worth 55 feet (5.5 flights). To make counting easier, I alternate between credit for 50 feet (five flights) and credit for 60 feet (six flights).
My daily effort includes 10 round trips up and down “St. Mortiz” for a total of 50 flights (550 vertical feet), which I supplement with more casual hill climbs before hiking home from “Little Switzerland.” (The rest of my quota is achieved by walking up and down floors of our house during the course of the day.) Without an app, accurate count of my “St. Moritz” climbs proved difficult. While slogging away, it’s easy to lose track. I need some mental device for keeping tabs.
Since I’m in “Little Switzerland,” I rely on four imaginary (Germaphone) volunteers—Fritz, Franz, Ferd, and Fred.
Each day I station them at the summit of “St. Moritz”—the top of “Little Switzerland.” There they build a fire as my beacon and to keep their hot chocolate hot.
All four Swiss are long retired from the national ski team, but they still wear their famous parkas. They like being on the mountaintop, but being Swiss, they also need to be industrious. They work in pairs and take turns holding up large, rectangular signs bearing white numerals on a red background (like the Swiss flag). The numbers reflect my cumulative “flights”—5, 11, 16, 22 (remember: my count alters between 5 and 6, instead of 5.5 “flights” each ascent) . . . up to 55.
As I skate-ski up the hill each time, my crew displays the number corresponding to my total—counting the current ascent once I’ve reached the “peak.” “Gehen Sie schnell!” they shout. I grunt my acknowledgment of their enthusiastic support. On days when my lazy self says, “You can quit if you want,” my cheering squad pull out their alpinhorns and . . . blast.
Being Swiss, these volunteers are precise and reliable. Thanks to their efforts, I don’t need some fancy app to track my progress. On my last descent of every season, I invite Fritz, Franz, Ferd or Fred to join me. All four are schussers—downhill racers in their day. They patiently await my slalom run—such as it is on x-c (“skinny”) skis—and reward me with a hearty, “Sehr gut, Herr Schwede! Sehr gut!”
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
