Points aren’t the Only Criterion of a Successful Season
With the season drawing to a close, it is, for every racer, a time of reckoning in which you look back and evaluate what kind of season you had: one to be proud of or one to reflect back on with disappointment and perhaps regret. One of the primary criteria that racers use to judge […]
Read MoreFinish the Season Strong (No Matter How it’s Going)
Note: This article is an encore representation of a topic that never gets old. It’s hard to believe, but there is only about a month of the race season left. After many days of training and racing, the end is in sight. At this late point in the season, you will have fallen into one […]
Read MoreTwo More Reasons Why Your Kids Should Ski Race
My family just returned from Ski Week (otherwise known as Winter Break for nonskiers) up in Tahoe where our two daughters (9 and 7) are members of the Sugar Bowl Ski Team. As many of you may know, California is suffering through a fourth straight year of drought. The temperatures were well above freezing at […]
Read MoreMarcel Hirscher at 14
I came across a great video of Marcel Hirscher at age 14 competing in the Topolino Games (a world juvenile championships). Do you see the makings of a superstar at that age? I’m not sure I do.
Read MoreRace Like You Train or Train Like You Race?
One of the first questions that I ask racers and coaches I work with is: Should you race like you train or train like you race? By far, the most frequent response is: You should race like you train. This answer seems perfectly reasonable if you think about it. When you train, you’re relaxed, feel […]
Read More5 Reasons Ski Racers Don’t Do Mental Training
Over the many years that I’ve been working in the field of sport psychology, I have championed the benefits of mental training for our sport to thousands of ski racers. This work has ranged from talks to junior programs to ongoing consulting with individual athletes and teams. As many of you know from my dozens […]
Read MoreBattle the Course, Not Yourself
Ski racing has become a combat sport in which you’re armored from head to toe and carrying weapons (razor sharp ski edges as swords and pointy ski poles for spears) to do battle against the course, terrain, snow conditions, and weather. You are also doing battle against the other racers in the field. Unfortunately, too […]
Read MoreMindset is an Essential Piece of the “Fast Skiing” Puzzle
As I have noted in past articles, Mikaela is a veritable fount of lessons on how to succeed as a ski racer (regardless of how you define success). In my last post, which I actually began writing before Mikaela’s Soelden victory (her first World Cup GS win), she demonstrated so beautifully what can happen when […]
Read MoreBe the Best Ski Racing Parent You Can Be: A Review
Hey parents, are you ready for another roller coaster ride called a winter of ski racing ? Racers aren’t the only members of the ski racing community who experience the intense ups and downs of our sport; their parents do too. The fact is that it’s hard being a ski racing parent. You invest your heart, […]
Read MoreSki Racers, Get Up to Speed for This Season: A Review
Hopefully, you’ve spent the summer getting ready for this winter of racing. If so, you should be stronger, better technically, and more mentally prepared than ever before. You’re now entering the final stage of preparations for the upcoming race season with a final period of conditioning followed by getting back on snow and tuning up […]
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