Mitchell Gunn with permission
Ski racing just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t always go the way we want it to. Our sport can be so frustrating. To the point where it’s easy to wonder why we devote so much time and energy to it. Let’s look at why ski racing doesn’t make sense.
First, ski racing is complex. There are many factors that impact performance. Some of those influences are external such as weather, terrain, and snow conditions. Others are internal including your health, fitness, technique, tactics, and, of course, your mind. And don’t forget all of the equipment involved. Ski racing is such a unforgiving sport that if just one of these areas is off, your skiing will be off and you won’t ski your fastest.
Second, ski racing is unpredictable and uncontrollable. To illustrate my point, let’s compare ski racing to school. If you’re reasonably intelligent and you study hard for an exam, assuming the exam is fair, the chances of earning a good grade are almost 100 percent. Why? Because just about everything that contributes to success is within your control. There is no equivalent of bad weather or rough snow conditions when you take an exam. Most often, whatever you put into school is what you get out of it. Not so for ski racing. Great effort and total preparation doesn’t always equal great results. You can be totally prepared to ski your fastest in the starting gate, but almighty ski racing gods decide it’s not going to be your day and you either DNF or make a time-sucking mistake.
Third, nothing comes quick and easy in ski racing. There are rarely sudden leaps in performance. Rather, there is the frustratingly slow grind forward as you get stronger physically, better technically and tactically, sharper mentally, and, hopefully, faster in races.
Third, progress isn’t steady. You’ll be improving solidly, then, all of a sudden, you seem to be going nowhere fast. If you’re lucky, you just plateau for a little while. If you’re really unlucky, your skiing seems to go backward, meaning you actually get slower. In either case, your stagnation is often a mystery that you can’t seem to solve. Then, hopefully, just as suddenly, you’re back to skiing fast. Oh so frustrating!
Fourth, ski racing isn’t a very fair sport. Often, those who don’t deserve to find success do (the supremely talented, but lazy), at least to a point, and those who do deserve to find success don’t (the hard workers, but perhaps with less talent). Also, what you put into your ski racing isn’t always what you get out of it. Sometimes, your best efforts don’t lead to the results you want.
Fifth, good feeling doesn’t always equal fast skiing. Have you ever crossed the finish line and was so excited because you felt great and just knew you were fast? But then you look at your time and are shocked at how slow you skied. And have you ever crossed the finish line disgusted with how you felt: out of control, off balance, feeling like you just had a hack run? But then you look at your time and are shocked at how fast you skied. That makes no sense (actually it does, but more on that later).
How To Deal with the (Non) Sense of Ski Racing
With our crazy sport, you have two choices. You can either quit ski racing because it just doesn’t make any sense (not something I would recommend). Or, you can recognize that our sport makes no sense and decide to deal with it the best you can. Here are some more practical suggestions.
First, and most basically, you must accept that ski racing doesn’t make sense and stop expending energy over raging against that fact or trying to force it to make sense. This shift in your thinking alone should remove some of the emotional weight that you carry when you push back against this simple, yet so frustrating, reality.
Second, though ski racing is complex, it is also organized, which means you can break all that complexity into manageable pieces. You can then take what had felt overwhelming and wrap your arms around each of the ‘bite-sized’ pieces and do everything you can maximize each piece.
Third, ski racing may seem unpredictable and feel uncontrollable, but there is a lot you can control, mainly you (i.e., your physical health, technical and tactical skills, psychology, and equipment). If you focus on and control the controllables, you don’t gain total control over your ski racing, but you do take enough control so that when the uncontrollables aren’t against you, you’ll have a very good chance of skiing fast and finding success.
Fourth, ski racing is a sport where many racers can “win,” meaning more than one racer can have a great result and feel successful. Yet, thinking about your competitors is a certain deal killer when it comes to fast skiing and good results. If you’re thinking about other racers, they’re in your head and you’re not. So, ignore everyone else and focus on yourself and what you need to do to ski your fastest.
Fourth, ski racing is a long-term investment. No aspect of our sport has quick fixes. Rather, you need three things to hang in there long enough to achieve your goals. The patience to give yourself the time necessary to improve and get the results you want. The persistence to keep working hard when it gets monotonous, boring, tiring, or painful. And the perseverance to stay positive and motivated in the face of failure, mistakes, setbacks, and other struggles.
Fifth, ski racing is one of those rare sports in which there is a paradox to performance. Often, the worse you feel, the faster you are skiing. This contradiction is due to the fact that fast skiing requires you to take risks such as charging over a transition, straightening out a flush, or holding your tuck just a bit longer that you ordinarily might. And risks mean getting out of your comfort zone, thus the bad feeling. But I tell racers that “it’s good to feel bad” because it means that they are pushing their limits. So, I encourage you to embrace risk and get uncomfortable to ski your fastest.
Ultimately, for you to keep pursuing your ski racing dreams, you must have faith that ski racing does make sense in the long run. Hopefully, that faith is rewarded with the results you want and the goals you have striven for. But, the reality is that ski racing doesn’t always work out that way.
But our sport can still make sense for you. If you don’t get the results you want, even with your best efforts, you can still find the sense in ski racing by knowing that you’ll notch far more important victories than podiums and trophies. What victories am I talking about? The fun, excitement, satisfaction, experiences, relationships, memories, and life lessons that you take with you from ski racing that will not only stick with you the rest of your life, but will also propel you toward success in another chapter of your life.
