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Today
People talk about mental toughness. Mostly they talk about it in the summer as a sort of ideal, something they want to be, or have. Often they use their best races as an example of how they feel when they are being mentally tough, when they are really pushing themselves, maybe when they are winning a race. These are the times when staying tough, when pushing yourself, when keeping positive is easy. Easy does not require toughness. It is enduring challenge, enduring disappointment, changing circumstances or conditions, major setback, pain without pay-off, when things are not going well and you still push yourself, still do what you think is the right thing, still stay positive and look ahead with confidence that you are mentally tough.
\r\nWe have been 4th, 5th, top 10, top 15 at Worlds, on the World Cup…
\r\nBut it is going forward from today that we see how tough we really are.
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\r\nToday we have achieved a happy circumstance. There is truly nowhere to go but up. Let me tell you how it happened. The short and understated version: we missed the wax. The long and painful version: after about half a km in the women’s race I said to myself, “oh no,” and in the men’s race I came to the same conclusion in the same amount of time. As a coach it is like being kicked in the stomach to see your athletes fall helplessly behind on the very first downhill.
\r\nThese mass-start races leave no doubt as to what is going on. Kris Freeman went from 18th to 55th in the distance of one long down hill. I watched as Rebecca Dussault and Andrew Johnson double-poled both further over the top of the hill and way earlier at the bottom than anyone else.
\r\nBut as bad as it feels watching from the side of the trail I remember that it is much, much worse to be that skier and realize after less than a km that it is going to be a very, very long day.
\r\nAnd it was. For everyone.
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\r\nBesides having nowhere to go but up there were several other positives on the day. First: no one quit. I don’t just mean that they didn’t dropout, I mean that they skied as fast as they could given their circumstance. Second: after the race we talked about what happened, learned from it, laughed some, warmed down (racers) and cleaned up the skis (waxers) and started plotting our attack on tomorrow – the sprint relay. Thirdly: no one blamed anyone else, everyone took an equal dose of responsibility for the mistake. Lastly (yeah, their weren’t a lot of positives): no one got down about it. We leave all bad races at the venue. No exceptions.
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\r\nThere are still a lot of races left this season; our expectations are still high.
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\r\nSo, what’s next?
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\r\nMidwest Super Tour races continue. Several members of the US Ski Team / Development team have been and will be racing in the Super Tour races in the Midwest.
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\r\nThe Europe crew will be traveling to Ruhpolding, Germany to prepare for Worlds. Our goal remains the same: one medal.
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\r\nReit im Winkl, GER February 12 and 13. World Cup. There is a 10km Women and 15km Men skate race and a classical sprint.
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\r\nOberstdorf, GER February 16 to 27. World Championships. There is a 10/15km skate, a 15/30km pursuit, a 4x5 women’s relay, a classical sprint, a 4x10 men’s relay, a team sprint skate and a 30/50 km mass start classical.
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\r\nAfter Worlds some will go on to World Cup, some will do a few weekends worth of Alpen (OPA) cup races and the rest will go home to race and train domestically.
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\r\nThere is much to come…
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Women's leaders. Pragelato Pursuit.
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Written By: petevDate Posted: 1/22/2005Number of Views: 213
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