On race day, the time you spend before your race is the most crucial period of race preparation. All of the hours of training you spend in the gym and on the hill may go for naught if you do not use your pre-race time wisely. What you think, feel, and do before a race [...]
A former University of Colorado teammate of mine who just happens to be married to an old Burke schoolmate of mine (ski racing is such a small world!) sent me a Facebook comment yesterday asking "Is there a phenomenon called fear of success or something like that?" Well, in fact, there is, and I have [...]
Performance slumps are one of the most common, yet mysterious, phenomena in ski racing. Typically viewed as unexplained drops in performances, slumps are a source of concern for racers, coaches, and parents. Despite its visible place in the collective psyche of the ski racing community, little is known about the causes of or cures for [...]
The World Junior Championships have just concluded in Switzerland and the World Alpine Skiing Championships are underway in Germany. And then there's you. You’ve worked hard all winter in pursuit of your goals and, hopefully, you’ve qualified for the races that you set as a goal in the fall: the States, Junior Olympics, Topolino, J2 [...]
Frustration may be your most significant obstacle to achieving your goals. Every ski racer, from juniors to Olympians, has experienced the feeling of frustration when you’re not able to do something as you pursue your goals; you feel stuck, get uptight, lose focus, and get discouraged. The best way I can describe the feeling is: [...]
So what do you need to do to be totally prepared to ski your best on race day? If you ask the top-ten men and women on the World Cup, you will probably get 20 different answers. But, having asked this question of many world-class ski racers, I have found five themes that underlie their [...]
Whenever I talk to racers and coaches, I ask them what aspect of ski racing seems to have the greatest impact on how they perform. Almost unanimously they say the mental part. I then ask how much time they devote to their mental preparation and their answer is almost always little or no time. Despite [...]
In an earlier post, I defined Prime Ski Racing as “skiing at a consistently high level under the most challenging conditions.” Prime Ski Racing is a goal toward which every racer strives, the result of which is to maximize your ski racing efforts and enable you to achieve your racing goals. But few racers, coaches, [...]
If you haven't heard of Mikaela Shiffrin by now, you're obviously not following ski racing. Though the 15-year-old Mikaela has been on the radar screen of people "in the know" for several years now, she entered the international ski racing stratosphere last year at Topolino (for those not that well versed in ski racing, this [...]
Giftedness is revered in our culture; inborn talent—whether intellectual, athletic, or artistic—ensures that children will be successful. How many times have you heard “Bode Miller was born to ski race” or “Lindsay Vonn was destined to greatness?” Well, let me clear something up: No one is born to do anything, certainly not to ski race. [...]