(Some of my teammates and I getting some needed recovery kayaking around Dillon Lake in Colorado)
As ski racers descend upon the state of Colorado to prepare
for the coming season I watch as we all begin to polish ourselves for the first
races. The goal is that by the time we leave our first start gate we will shine
more brilliantly than the stars. We see all of our friends from other teams
that we haven’t skied with since last March. It’s game time and technique is
only one of the things we are working on these days. It’s Colorado and training
changes. We begin to train longer courses (assuming we ever get enough snow
here to do that!) and the timing gate is out on a regular basis. Our technique
is hopefully coming together and all the problems we had at May camp are
starting to look like they might be behind us. Hopefully we are stronger than
ever and now we shift from dryland training to conditioning maintenance.
In my opinion this time is critical for our psychological
training. We should have been practicing things, visualizing, and discovering
ourselves over the summer but now we need to do some race day preparation. It
is hard for anybody to know what it will feel like in that gate until we are
there, but hopefully we are trying to figure it out. We should have some idea
of what kind of race-day personality we are.
A race day personality is what kind of state of mind we work
best with on race day. Some people are super focused and intense, some are
silly and playful, some are nervous, some are calm. It all depends upon who you
are. For example I am an intense personality with a touch of playful. I need to
get focused on the task at hand but I also need a little bit of
lightheartedness to keep me from over-thinking my race. I like to talk to
people but I will also draw internally some as I bring my focus and intensity
up. I know other people who are completely different; they need to be totally
by themselves or need to get to the start last minute to freak themselves out
about something other than the race. There are nearly as many race
personalities as there are racers and everybody needs to find their own. As a
J3 Mikaela Shiffrin used to sleep at the start (I don’t know if she still does
this); she won Topolino after doing that. Now is when racers should play with
this. Do you ski faster when you chat your way out of the start or when you
take time to focus? Do you like people cheering for you or is it distracting?
Do you like to be in a rush at the start or have plenty of time?
I think it is important to remember that everybody is
different. What works for your best friend, brother, teammate, idol, etc.
might not work for you. What
worked last year might not even work now. You never know. As you get older I
think you start to get a better idea of what is good but it still changes
somewhat. Now is the time to figure it out so lets get out on the snow we have
and remember races aren’t even around the corner—they are nearly upon us. Let’s
start the season sparkling like the Colorado snow we are dreaming of!
