Since this is a blog about real life and the journey through World Cup from the bottom up, here’s one you don’t normally see. I’ll go over the last month, in which most of our races for the season are all stacked in. But before I do, just know that even though it sometimes feels arduous and you’re hitting your head against a wall, I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. You willingly make these trade-offs in order to be able to travel around the world with your friends and get paid to do the sport you love, and in my eyes will always be worth it. Because if it all came easy, what would be the satisfaction in that?

Maybe that’s just my justification that I don’t immediately get to the top like an Odermatt or somebody, but regardless, let’s catch back up to speed real quick. After my fall in Val Gardena, I spent the next 10 days resting in Innsbruck hoping to give my shoulder enough time to heal. The doc said my criteria to go race was doing a push-up, so a few days before the training runs started I did not just one, but two push-ups, so I figured I was in peak physical condition again. But then showing up to Bormio, the hardest track in the world, with the most recent feeling on skis being cartwheeling through the finish, was not the easiest thing mentally. However I love the challenge of it there; it’s unlike any other hill, so I wanted to push through. I made it through, even bagged a couple points, but then as soon as we finished and my body could relax again into recovery mode, the built-up stress of the last few weeks caught up with me and I was immediately sick.

So the following ten days before Wengen were also spent in bed trying to recover and get healthy again. As luck might have it, Wengen is the longest track in the world by about 30 seconds, the perfect place to ease back into things after a sickness. The weekend was a fight but I didn’t want to take no for an answer, and carried on my business. Thanks to this I finished Wengen feeling almost more sick than before, except this time we had two days before racing Kitzbühel. But like any right-minded downhiller I would do anything to be able to race Kitz, so I tried to keep the wheels on the bus and let the energy of the weekend lift me out of the hole. By Saturday though, I knew I just didn’t have the energy to push the limit anymore and pulled out of the final downhill race. It felt like giving up, and although there were more minds behind the decision than just mine, deciding not to race when you have a chance is never an easy call.

After Kitz I had planned to go to Tarvisio, in the corner of Italy with Austria and Slovenia, and race some European Cups. I thought that by giving myself an extra day of rest in Kitz I would have it in me to go get some high-quality training and racing at these slightly easier events, but that’s where I was wrong. It’s becoming clear that I’m still young in this sport after management mistakes like this. I end up grinding myself into a hole energy-wise because I always want to compete every chance I get. So you live and you learn I guess, but this was one of the poorer ideas I’ve had. Because with a single day of rest in between, we then had two World Cup SG’s in Garmisch. With SG being my best event currently, this was a huge weekend for me, and a huge opportunity. But I came into it so far in the tank that it would’ve been better to not race at all. By the end of the last race, I was struggling to walk out of the finish area for fear of passing out.

To my selfish delight, and the sadness of many others, the upcoming races in Chamonix the very next week were cancelled due to a lack fo snow. Which is an all-too-common occurrence these days, but that’s an issue for another post. So we took advantage of the time and went down to Tuscany for the week. Every other team in the world gets to go home at times like these, but we’re a bit stuck on this side of the pond, so we found this mental training institute created for Formula 1 drivers and gave them a visit for a few days. In between celebrating Karneval and surfing and eating Poke, we had four full days of this mental training. They presented a gauntlet of mental games testing focus and memory and the ability to minimize distractions, all with the shared theme of maximizing efficiency of the brain in stressful situations like races.

This reset and time off skis was exactly what I needed, as we’re now back in Saalbach, Austria training on the same hill as World Cup finals and next year’s World Championships. Crazy what kind of difference having a bit more power in the legs and a fresh perspective in the mind will get you. Skiing’s a whole lot more fun this way, that’s for sure.

But I hope this post can put into perspective some of the trials and tribulations of breaking into the World Cup. Trying to be the best in the world at anything is a big ask, and there’s many mistakes made along the way as you can see here. Especially when you get in the grind and don’t bother to bring your head up to look at the bigger picture sometimes. But the only way forward is to learn what I can so that this don’t happen again, and keep trucking. Remembering the dream I had as a kid and the support of so many along the way makes me so grateful to do this for a living, and keeps me going. Because anybody can do this job on the days where it’s sunny and you’re skiing fast. The difference is made in those cold dark training sessions where you don’t want to be there.

So here’s to making that difference, and trending uphill from here!