nordic_nerd

Paging u/gavinfree

I feel like so many people got this wrong from Outliers, and I've had multiple discussions with people in the last decade on it. From the media coverage, a lot of people got the impression that the "10,000 hour rule" means if you do something for 10,000 hours, you'll be pro at it. No. 10,000 hours is the baseline, bare minimum to even have a chance.

Hey Collin, just curious: have you ever seen a wild loon? They really are impressive and beautiful birds.

To bring this around to your ULLU message, according to a recent DNR study, the loons are retreating from MN as the climate warms and becomes increasingly hostile towards them. As someone with vivid memories of hearing the loons on the lake as I played soccer in my back yard, this troubles me a quite a bit.

From my understanding, Kikkan is a pretty well recognized in her home state of Alaska. Skiing is relatively big there anyway, she's one of the best athletes to ever come from there, and she still lives there (at least when she's not travelling/racing).

In the rest of the U.S. her name would almost certainly be be recognized by people who cross country ski, but outside of that community she's not really known at all.

As for places where skiing is popular, basically you're looking at the northern midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan's UP), New England and the Northeast states (Vermont, Maine, etc. down to Massachusetts), and to a lesser extent, the mountain states such as Colorado and Utah. Anything further south doesn't get the snow and, at best, thinks of backcountry touring when you bring up "xc skiing."

Good to hear!

Also, want to thank you (and the rest of the MNU team) for being great ambassadors and role models for the MSP metro area and the state of MN. Awesome to see you guys clinch last night. COYL!