I have been skiing once, some friends and I went up to Copper Mountain Colorado for a week - and as a person who spent much of his past years jumping off tall bridges into rivers, skydiving, and racing things with wheels - I was astonished at how fast I was able to go with a long pair of skis and really good snow. It is a miracle I didn't injure myself.
I worked with a 70+ year old fabricator at a hot-rod shop who was an avid skier - and apparently quite good as he would enter ski races and usually win. It reminded me of the scenes in Star Wars when Yoda is hobbling around like an ancient, elderly creature but when he has to fight he was a ninja-gymnast. That is how Ron was. He waddled around the shop like a high mileage elderly old man - but when the skis went on he moved like a decades younger Olympian.