Lately, my training and life have made me happy and have been fulfilling. However, that’s not to say it’s been without its ups and downs. Sometimes, even while doing what you love, surrounded by the people you love, things get hard. Despite all of the amazing photos and memories, there are often hidden setbacks and hardships. Sickness, stress, overtraining, and though intensity sessions are all too common in the sport of nordic skiing and when you’re seeking perfection, even the mildest inconvenience can feel like it’s single handedly tanking your entire season.
A little over a month ago, I came down with a cold, which I later found out was Covid. I sat around the house for a week waiting to feel better and then eased slowly into training the following week, keeping sessions short and easy. The first week was initially a relief. It was nice to sit on the couch and vegetate for a few days. Shortly after, those feelings dissipated and gave way to boredom, restlessness, and frustration. It became hard not to look at my training log and think about how many hours of training I was missing.
After a few weeks, I was feeling a bit more normal and training was picking back up. I was able to do intensity sessions more consistently and felt like training was returning to normal. About a week later, I boarded a plane to Oslo to meet up with the US Ski Team. We spent a week in Torsby, Sweden skiing inside the Torsby Ski Tunnel (A 1.3 km indoor tunnel that holds snow year round), followed by a week in Trollhatten for some high level rollerski races. But again, training volume and consistency took a hit from all of the travel.
Despite the novelties of camp life (naps every day, buffet style dining, new scenery, and free time), it was hard to get in a large amount of training. With the travel and time change, the hours had to be cut back and most people still felt like they were more tired than usual. After all was said and done, the training log was left looking a little slim.
Sometimes I find myself looking back and wondering if the lower hours will transfer negatively to the race season, or if I could have done things differently. All nordic skiers know the feeling and know that it can be a hard feeling to shake.
Now, with every negative, comes a positive. Going from a ‘glass half empty’ to a ‘glass half full’ mentality is a conscious decision that everyone can make. Before this was written, I sat down to think about all of the pros and cons surrounding my last 6 weeks of training. What I found is that the heavy feelings of any negatives could be outweighed by positives.
Covid may have been a driving force behind my lower training volume but gave me a great block of rest that probably got me all the way through my Swedish training camp. I had a lot of time to think about what really makes a good skier and how: often the way that you ski and apply power is more important than how much you ski. With the physical rest, came mental rest as well. By the time I was healthy, all I wanted to do was start training again and get back on the roller skis. That mental break fueled my training up until I left for camp.
Most importantly, despite lower hours while in Sweden, I got to ski on real snow. The first week may have only been 19 hours, but at least 12 of those were spent on my winter skis, reinforcing good snow technique. It’ll only be another 2 months before I get back onto snow and hopefully a midsummer technique reminder will carry over to snow skiing better come fall. Each day, I trained with the best skiers in the country. Those were probably some of the most productive sessions of the summer for all of us.
On top of all that, we raced four different roller ski races while we were there. I’m not going to lie; I was not pleased with my results. But I did learn a lot from each race and it’s always better to have poor performances in the summer than in the winter. I have a list of takeaways from the races that I will be able to apply to my ski racing this winter.
The moral of the story is that there will always be ups and downs in life and in training. My high school yearbook quote was: “The state of your life is nothing more than the state of your mind.” When skiers and athletes face adversity, there is always a way to reinforce a ‘glass half full’ kind of mentality. It’s something I focus on in my life and is something I try to help the people around me do as well. I hope that everyone reading this can find their way of rolling with the punches and attaining a ‘glass half full’ mentality.
