This is outside in. I'm producer Taylor Quimby.

I'm executive producer Erica Janick.

Sam is currently at home with his new baby.

Not that that is going to prevent him from actually hosting this episode,

as you'll discover in a few minutes.

So listeners probably know that Sam is a big cross-country skier.

He coaches the local high school team and he once won Argentina's biggest national race.

And as an incredibly talented endurance athlete,

the rest of us slubs on staff sometimes poke fun at him

in kind of that jealous way that people will.

Absolutely. But during the Winter Olympics, kind of that jealous way that people will. Yeah, absolutely.

But during the Winter Olympics, for a brief moment,

the whole country pays attention to the sport.

And every four years, it seems like somebody always

has to take a shot at cross country.

So there was this, you said it was New York Times magazine?

Yes.

Yeah, New York Times magazine article that called cross country a brutally sustained non-thrill and the least watchable of the

major Olympic sports. It's not nice. That too. Even public radio through some cross-country shade.

Cross-country skiing is not really a spectator sport either.

It's very hard for it to be covered.

I mean, it's boring as hell to look at and they go by.

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