You know that feeling you get when you are really excited about something that’s about to happen and you wake up a bunch of times before your alarm, wondering if it’s time yet, and nervous that you’re going to oversleep.
That’s usually how I feel leading up to a World Cup race. I’d describe it as a sense of eager anticipation.
By the time the alarm does finally go off, my mind feels fully awake.
The rest of the morning includes warm up, stretching, activation, breakfast, packing my ski bag and getting picked up from the hotel by our ski technicians who have already loaded all our skis into the van. We then drive to the mountain and take the lift up to the course and warm up area.
Next we take a couple warm up runs before inspection. I’ve been trying to find the right balance of thinking about my actual skiing (technique) in the course and thinking about where I need to go (tactics), so my warm up runs are focused on ingraining good technique. Ideally I’d be at the point where my best skiing comes naturally and I don’t have to think about it in the course, but I don’t know if I will ever reach that point, so for now it’s just about finding a good balance between tactics and technique and knowing which is more important at which part in the course.
This is why inspection is so important. I didn’t take inspection seriously enough until this year, but in speed a good inspection is paramount. During inspection, I look at the line I want to take, how the snow will hold up, what the terrain is going to feel like and how it’s going to affect the turn shape and pressure, what I think the speed is going to be, where I can tuck and look for speed or where I need to be tactically smart and technically strong. Sometimes I will hike up to test my line on blind gates 1 2 or 3 times so I feel confident with where I need to be going when I’m going full speed. My coaches will be on the hill giving advice on where to go or how the course has run in previous years if it is a downhill (because downhill courses are the same every year). I also stop many times to visualize the course from the start. For example, I’ll stop five gates in and visualize, and then I’ll stop ten gates in and visualize the whole thing again from the start, over and over, until the bottom I am able to visualize the whole course. Inspecting a super g or downhill course takes almost an hour.
Next, I take a few more runs. Sometimes there will be a warm up course set up, or sometimes I just free ski, but I definitely like to take around 3-5 runs before I race to feel confident on my skis and warmed up. Then I’ll go into the Team Hospitality building where all the racers wait for their run, and I watch the first couple racers on the live stream to see if their line matches up with what I have planned. I also look at what the speeds are like, how the terrain runs, how the snow holds up etc. When I raced more tech (slalom and gs world cups) I didn’t like to watch too many racers on the live stream because it would get me a little too psyched out, but with speed I can be more objective with looking more for tactical information and not get in my head too much. But different athletes have different feelings about watching the live stream.
When I am about 20 racers out, I head down to the start to warm up, get a course report and mentally prepare for my run. I also visualize the course multiple times in between inspection and my run and go over my game plan again and again.
I think the ideal headspace for me during a race is hardly conscious at all. Making decisions on line, pressure, and aerodynamics from the vault of muscle memories built up through training sessions and fine tuned during visualization of the course all morning. So its really important for me to feel totally confident in my plan so I don’t second guess anything during the run. As the time for my run gets closer and closer, I try to remain focused but calm. I don’t want to totally black out in the course but I also need to ski loose and sendy to be fast.
I push as hard as possible out of the start. During the run I remind myself of the important points on the course and urge myself to push harder. Occasionally a determined observant thought will slip through like “that was a good turn” or “sh*t that was bad” but I try to keep the focus on what I need to do at every point and not reflect at all. I don’t really know how to describe this mindset, but it often leads to me forgetting what happened during my runs by the time I get to the bottom until I watch my video later and the details come back. It’s honestly pretty exhilarating.
As I reach for the finish line, I usually have a quick thought on how the run felt “ugh that wasn’t enough” or “ shoot I really messed up that one section” or “the bottom pitch felt awesome” and then I look at my time.
In past years I let my ranking immediately affect how I felt about the run. But this year I’ve gotten better at reflecting more on my skiing, my approach and my execution and less on my finish place. I think this is a good thing.
I have’t made top thirty yet, but with the exception of the second race in St. Moritz I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job with my approach. I just need to do a better job of executing every section of the run to the best of my ability. I need to hold myself to a higher bar for every turn, not getting lazy or scared for one second and instead committing to the plan confidently. It sounds easy when I write it out but it’s both mentally and physically quite hard. But that’s what I’ve been working on and I really, really hope I can execute all the way to the bottom this weekend.
Here are some photos from the past couple weeks:
Tricia, Thank you for sharing your wonderful journey You have a great process of preparation. Trust it and ski free with glee. Go for it!