Downhill has always been the hardest event for me to figure out. I have had runs that feel amazing and I’m unbelievably slow, and I have had runs where I’m all over the place, scared, and backseat and they sometimes end up being really fast. This is the exact reason it has been such a challenge for me in the past: I don’t know what skiing fast downhill feels like.
Because I’ve never been particularly good at downhill, I didn’t race it very often (about twice a year in Nor-Am’s) and I definitely didn’t train downhill. Not really a recipe for getting better at it, but it’s not that fun to do something that you’re naturally not that good at!
However, last year I decided to commit to skiing downhill on the World Cup with the hope/intention that it would help my Super G. The way the women’s World Cup is scheduled is that almost every super-g race is after a downhill. So everyone who races the downhills has three days on the track (two training runs and one race) before the super g which puts them at a big advantage for knowing the snow and the terrain of each track, compared to skipping the downhills and just showing up for the super-g.
My plan last year was to start training downhill so I could at the very least do the training runs before the super-g and potentially be good enough to race some of the downhill races as well. But I still was focused primarily on super-g and as it turned out I only ended up training 5 days of downhill last season.
So while I did make big improvements in my downhill (honestly just being able to make it down some of the World Cup Downhill tracks safely was extremely rewarding for me), I didn’t really commit to training it as much as I could have.
Reflecting on last season, I think that part of my hesitation with training a lot of downhill was that if I spent a lot of time focusing on downhill, it would make me slower at the other events I was naturally good at (super-g, GS). This had some truth in it, but looking back now I realize that this was because I never took the time to really think about how downhill was different than super-g. I was trying to ski downhill the same way I skied super-g, and this not only didn’t work and was quite slow, but it also made me form bad habits whenever I skied downhill.
This past month in Chile, I realized that in order to really progress in downhill as much as possible (and use it as an asset to my super-g), I needed to fully understand the event. Racing downhill in Chile was definitely a catalyst for this realization. If I didn’t understand how to be fast or what that feels like, what am I supposed to be thinking about in races!
Downhill is a tricky event though, and I knew I didn’t have the knowledge myself so I decided to outsource some help via instagram :)
I got lots of responses back and talked to a couple coaches and other athletes about different strategies and ways to think about downhill.
As a quick side note, a big breakthrough for me in the past couple years is knowing when I need to ask others for help and advice. But the double edged sword of asking and getting advice is that then you need to learn to discern what will be helpful for you and what won’t. I’ve found that this is a balance between asking the right people and filtering the advice in a way that will be helpful for me. For downhill advice it was important for me to be openminded (as I clearly haven’t been thinking about it in the right way in the past), and also think about who understood my skiing style (or skied similarly).
The biggest thing I learned about downhill this past month is navigating the balance between thinking about line/tactics (where I need to be compared to the gates- this is most critical in downhill compared to the other events) and technique (how I’m actually skiing). In the past I have worried too much about tactics to the extent where it takes away from my actual skiing (I get back seat and am reacting to everything vs. being proactive and aggressive with my skiing).
So now, I am taking a step back and thinking mostly about how I’m skiing. Downhill is a bit of a paradox because you’re going super fast (up to 80 mph) but you have to think about your movements in a very gradual way.
How does one be patient with their timing while also being aggressive with their body position and movements? This is exactly what I’m working on.
I also learned from some of the responses more about how to think about glide turns (going pretty straight and fast in a very low tuck) which is it’s own can of worms and some people have the natural ability and other don’t. But I know that even though I’m not naturally good at it I can still improve. We had some great glide sessions in Chile. They were really boring and also super intense at the same time because you run the same very easy course up to ten times and you’re in your tuck the whole course but you have to be really intentional and accurate with your pressure and line. In general, downhill is much more mentally taxing than I have given it credit for in the past, and it always surprises me how drained I am after downhill training.
I still have a long way to go with my downhill, but I finally feel like it’s not a totally foreign event to me and I have a bit of a better sense of what is and isn’t fast and what that feels like when I’m skiing. A good place to start :)
Finally, I wanted to note that it was really encouraging that so many people responded to my instagram story to help me. It makes me think about the possibility for more mentorship connection/ knowledge share potential in the ski world.
Enjoyed hearing your thoughts on committing to downhill to help your overall skiing. It will pay dividends as you discern the slight differences in line and edge pressure. Will you ski GS? Killington?