An unpaid tourist brochure

LAKE PLACID - Nothing like being in a tourist town in the off-season, which here must start March 1. No crowds, relatively warm temperatures, modestly priced restaurants.

But still, there is enough of the main attraction here - snow - to make for some nice cross-country skiing, and I was pleased to find out I can do it for an hour and a half and not be totally exhausted. That is enough time to make all of the fun fringes that go along with the sport, like sitting in a hot tub, having wine and cheese and having dinner near a fire, seem to have been at least partly earned.

Of course, that means a little anxiety too.

I was a bit unnerved at the end of our run when I came across a guy getting into his car who was looking at a broken ski pole.

He said he had been thrown off balance by a branch across the trail and had nearly impaled himself on the pole.

"But I'm OK,'' he said, bravely. "That's why I work on my abs when I go to the gym.''

That made me wince a little bit, because my abs still feel tight after my surgery last June, and felt much tighter after the skiing. The surgeon did warn me that it takes a year to recover from abdominal surgery. Glad I didn't have the additional problem of impaling myself on a pole.

It's back to the big city tomorrow, with a planned CT-scan in the afternoon a jolting reminder of my patient status. But it was nice to think about other things for a while.