Ski bum of the week

Team members: Josi Kytle, Katrina Veerman, Alison Beckwith and anchor Pascale Savard, who came in 11th overall last week.

What makes you so fast? Lycra and wax (we schmooze with all the ski tuners in town); experience (Pascale); equipment (we schmooze all the demo guys too); training on Mondays with the race guru, John Tewhill; and, well, we basically hit the gas! We’re all pretty competitive. We have a former national ski team member, a tennis pro, a collegiate diver and three of the four are multi-sport endurance athletes. We also strategize the running order based on conditions.

Which of you is likely to moonlight as hibachi chef? Josi. In fact, this was her high school superlative.

Do you like to ski in raw conditions? By raw, do you mean “in the flesh”?

Of course! Skikini season is the best time of the year! If you mean bitter cold, not so much, but we’ll camp out at the Cliff House with a bottle (or two) of chardonnay no matter what the conditions, and we’ve always been able to ski down. We worked on our ski-ballet routine today, in fact, after popping some corks at the Cliff House.

How many years of combined bum racing does the team have?

Pascale just entered the amateur ranks last year. Josi and Katrina have three seasons between them, and Alison is the veteran ski bum with six years or so (but only learned to ski at 35, so pretty much went from a Raccoon to ski bum in the same year). So, she got to be captain.

Why are you competing in Stowe instead of Sochi this week? Alison exceeds the maximum age limit; Pascale would have to ski for Canada; Josi has given up on U.S. Team plans but, like her accent, maybe she can fake her way onto the British team; and Katrina is still demoing skis to dial in the right race ski. But, we should have our act together for the 2018 Olympics. Team Miso Fast would like to thank their sponsor, Nate and Sushi Yoshi, for believing in them.