This weekend in St. Moritz was definitely a roller coaster.
I had a pretty solid first race where I had some good turns but didn’t tuck as much as I should have and was very back seat, partly as a result of the extremely flat light, and partly because this is something I always struggle with.
My second race was a bit of a disaster. I over-skiied the course and was thinking too much about the set and not enough about being aggressive and taking risks.
I was extremely disappointed after the second race, because until that run, I had been slowly progressing every race. But as I crossed the finish line and looked at my time and thought about my run, Sunday’s Super-G felt like a huge step backwards. I’ve since realized that every race is an opportunity to learn and thus move forward, but in the moment I was angry, frustrated and sad.
As I thought about my disappointment in the following few days, I asked myself where it was coming from.
Why did this one bad result hurt so badly?
I realized that I was most bummed because I felt like I had let myself down. Each race is an opportunity to show how hard I’ve been working. And I held back and didn’t give it my all.
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve known that the absolute worst feeling for me is finishing a race run and knowing I could have charged harder. Worse than crashing, worse than skiing aggressively and making a mistake, worse than just being slow. And although I did make a mistake Sunday and there were other factors at play that caused me to be slow, the thing that made me most upset is that I got to the bottom and felt like I didn’t try my hardest.
I recently read a quote from the book Bravey by Alexis Papas, a Dartmouth grad, Olympic Marathoner, a writer and producer. She said:
“All I’ve ever wanted is to give it all I’ve got.”
I could not agree with this more.
It’s easy to get caught up in the results, especially with it being an Olympic year. But as a friend reminded me recently. I’m not ski racing just to go to the Olympics. I’m ski racing because I love it. I love pushing and challenging myself. I love working towards goals that seem unrealistic but slowly over time become a reality. And most of all I love giving it my all.
And I will continue to try to do just that.
I just arrived in Val D’Isere France and have two training runs the next two days and then a Downhill on Saturday and Super G on Sunday! They will be streamed again on Peacock and https://skiandsnowboard.live/