Have you ever thought about how incredibly difficult it is to be a ski racer? So many factors affect how well and how fast you can ski a course, whether in training or races. And, one small mistake or failure in any one of those many areas will result in a disappointing run with little to no opportunity to turn the run around.

I actually see ski racing in three ways: as always complex, sometimes complicated, and, yes, in the end, quite simple. Let me explain.

Complex

Everyone who knows anything about alpine ski racing knows that it is a very complex sport with many contributors to athletic development and competitive success and failure. Those factors that impact ski racing performance are both within and outside of racers and, as a consequence, both within and outside of their control.

Environmental elements that have an immense influence on how you ski in training and races include terrain, snow conditions, course set, weather, and elevation. Ice, ruts, steeps, transitions, flats, tight or open courses, tricky combinations, cold, wind, snow, rain, and lack of oxygen all make skiing consistently fast an incredible difficult goal to achieve. The sheer variability of these external areas can cause the best preparations and efforts to end in failure. Frustratingly, none of these influences on performance are within your control. Ultimately, all you can do is adapt to this complexity the best you can.

Other external forces include people with whom you interact. Teammates, other competitors, coaches, officials, of course, parents, and social media (a big problem these days!) are more pieces of the “ski fast” puzzle that makes the puzzle more difficult to complete. Comparison with other racers, overcoaching, and needing to publish positive posts on social media all add to the complexity of skiing fast consistently.

And don’t forget equipment. Though not quite as equipment intensive as, say, Formula 1 auto racing, the ability to ski fast is highly dependent on the complex interplay of skis, boots, bindings, poles, and related gear. This impact starts with testing and finding the right equipment for your individual capabilities and needs, continues with boot alignment and base textures, and concludes with daily and race tunes that optimize equipment performance.

Internal factors add even more to this complexity. Physical conditioning, on-snow training, technique, tactics, sleep, nutrition, and, especially these days, tech use. For you to ski your fastest consistently, you must maximize all of these areas to get the most out of your physical capabilities.

And let’s not forget the mental side of our sport. You need to train and strengthen your “mental muscles” (e.g., motivation, confidence, intensity, focus, and mindset). You also must have a well-stocked mental toolbox for when problems arise including goal setting, positive self-talk, mental imagery, training and race routines, and breathing, to name a few. The interplay of all of these mental influences makes finding the ideal combination even more difficult.

Due to the very nature of ski racing, we can’t do anything to make it less complex. It is those very complexities that make our sport so interesting, challenging, and, ultimately, fulfilling. All you can do is understand everything that is involved in making ski racing so complex and look for ways to manage them to the best of your ability.

Complicated

Unfortunately, too often, racers (and coaches and parents) take our sport beyond the realm of complexity and make it unnecessarily complicated. This new level of complication occurs entirely in the minds of those involved, and those who ultimately suffer from these complications are racers themselves.

You have a tough enough time responding positively to the many obstacles that I described above that are outside of your control. It is entirely unfair and undermining that you be expected to also deal constructively with the obstacles that get erected in your minds by yourself, parents, coaches, and our destructive sport culture.

These mental barriers include overinvestment in your racing (you want to care about your ski racing, but you don’t want to care too much, perfectionism, fear of failure (epidemic in our culture and the #1 reason athletes comes to me, though they don’t know it’s the real cause of their mental challenges at the time), a preoccupation with results, expectations, and pressure. These obstacles conspire to do a massive mental whammy on you in the form of a loss of motivation, decline in confidence, worry, stress, anxiety, distraction, and a veritable tsunami of negative emotions including fear, frustration, anger, disappointment, hopelessness, sadness, and despair. When add these ingredients to the already boiling cauldron called alpine ski racing, you get a toxic stew that makes consistently fast skiing a near impossibility.

Simple

I apologize for painting such a depressing picture of what it takes to be successful as an alpine ski racer. But I will end on a very positive note. While accepting the unavoidable complexities of our sport, your goal is to let go of the complications that get heaped upon you, not an easy task, to be sure. In fact, I believe that freeing your mind of these psychological and emotional difficulties is the Holy Grail of ski racing and, in fact, a happy and successful life. Though beyond the scope of this article (much of my writing over these many decades has been devoted to showing racers how they can drink from the Holy Grail, so please visit my blog to learn more), I can offer you a perspective that may help you focus on what’s important and, in doing so, remove the metaphorical weight vest that is laden with our sport’s complexities and complications.

Despite everything I’ve written so far in this article, ski racing is actually quite simple. How’s that, you may wonder. Well, because when you slide into the starting gate, you should have only one thought on your mind: ski as fast as you can! That’s it, that’s all, it’s that simple. You can call it bring it, full gas, full send, attack, charge, or what-have-you. Regardless, the message is the same: Clear your mind of all of the complexities and complications (i.e., crap!) and just get from the start to the finish as fast as you can.

Of course, that singular focus is easier said than done for all of the reasons I’ve described above. At the same time, its simplicity is also its strength because the idea of just bringing it is easy to wrap your arms around and focus on, and it is easy to build a wall of simplicity around yourself as your start number approaches that can shield you from the massive clutter that can overfill your brain until you feel like it will explode.

So, next time the complexities and complications of our sport begin to take hold of you, remember how simple ski racing really is—just ski as fast as you can!—and charge down the hill. Regardless of how the race turns out, you’ll feel good having given it your all. And if you continue to keep it simple and keep charging, sooner or later, you’ll finish a race without major mistakes, and the outcome will be very, very good.