My instinct was almost always eerily and sadly correct. The nearest name for the behavior that I can come up with is displacement. Freud used the term, “sublimation”; but that usually involved sex, which has very little to do with football records. It’s substituting understandable, manageable stress for stress that feels too big to deal with. The joggers and skiers got themselves into great shape physically, and it actually may have helped in the long run. Some research has shown that people who practice displacement in their early years adapt better to stress in later life.

Whatever the case, the winter of 1984-85 was a perfect storm for me. My business was about to go under, and my house was mortgaged to the hilt to cover it (I’d signed the mortgages during the Carter years, when interest rates were sky-high). The IRS was threatening a property auction. And there was literally nothing I could do about it. Except, maybe, displace.

My daily after-work mileage shot up from four to ten. I split firewood like a demon, till my side yard was laced with dozens of neatly stacked cords. When the snow came – and it turned out that 1984-85 was a banner year for reliable snow – I read that Kodak was challenging skiers to record their cumulative mileage for the winter. It was off to the races, literally

The Canadian Ski Marathon was in full flower then: a two-day, 100-mile tour up the Ottawa Valley in the company of hundreds of other happy lovers of the sport. My friends and I had done it for years. So I started getting ready for that: every night after supper, I clipped on the skis and headlamp and wound down through the woods and over old fences to the groomed and lighted Silver Fox Trail, where I went ‘round and ‘round and finally home again around nine.

Then I got wind of a more demanding event, the so-called Iditaski Marathon in Alaska – 207 miles, night-and-day, in mid-February. My buddy Dudley, the readiest man I ever know for whatever was next, signed up, too. I had a writing assignment to pay for it. What was not to like?

Back from Alaska (I got the trophy for being the oldest finisher at only fifty), there was the annual Geriatric Adventure Society epic bushwhack through northern New Hampshire: two parties of men armed with maps and compass – the good old days – traveled through the bushes planning a pincers movement that occasionally, incredibly, succeeded. And all the time, between events, the almost-daily workouts. Finally, I got another assignment, to cover the World Cup Nordic races in Labrador City, Newfoundland, followed by the 50-kilometer Great Labrador Loppet on Easter Sunday. Even the seasoned World Cup veterans were impressed by the eaves-high snow. One interpreter told me that, as the skiers got off their chartered jet, he’d never before heard all at once, in so many languages, “Look at all the ******* snow!” Again, my buddy Dudley was there.

When the snow around here finally got too thin in March, he and I totted up our mileage. Between training and racing, I had about 2500 kilometers! I still occasionally hug the old pair of Fischers in the basement (now, like me, retired from the trail) that carried me so far.

What a year! And did all that displacement make the bogeyman of failure go away? Nah; I still went broke that summer. But the research may be accurate. I think the unconscious thrashing around did prepare me for the stresses of later life. They’re subdued at the moment, but I know they’re out there still, planning their next move. I hate to invite trouble, but bring it on!