Cross Country Skiing

When making major decisions, I take a balanced approach and make sure to assess it on both low days and high days. I also try to take some time to fantasize about the future before making decisions. Lastly, I make sure that I'm well-rested before making important decisions.
 
Transcript: "All right, good morning. What is your process for approaching major decisions in your life? Well, let's see. It's pretty simple. My number one rule is not to make a major decision if I am emotional or tired or frustrated or feeling low and feeling like I need to escape something. I think that's kind of the main issue. If you feel like you want to quit something, make sure you are assessing this decision on both the low days that you're having and also days that are positive, when your mood is good and you're rested. Really try to give myself a balanced opportunity to make the right decision. Beyond that, I let myself sort of fantasize about what the next step would be in life and have a good time. Most often, a lot of these revolve around, I think for ski coaches, what else could I be doing out there? Often we have those thoughts like late in the winter when you're tired. I go home and have a couple weeks of rest and I'm super excited to cross-country ski race again and coach. That's why I like to make sure that I'm rested and feeling good before actually making an important decision. Thank you."

My career objective is to help build the culture of skiing and Southern Vermont so that we can continue to have success. My personal objective is to be a good husband and father; being kind and supportive to my family.
 
Transcript: "So the question is, what are one career objective and one personal objective that you want to accomplish before you die? My career objective I've had for a long time and that was to have someone in the program that I coach and help with, have someone win an Olympic or World Championship medal and that's been accomplished so that's great. Now I guess moving on from that, my objective would be to help build the culture of skiing in Southern Vermont so that we can continue to have success. My personal objective has always been to be a good husband and father and by that I mean being kind and supportive and Jerry's still out on that but that will always be my goal is to be a nice kind person and very supportive of my family."

I learned the importance of perseverance from a sprint race where I ended up on the podium despite feeling tired and outmatched.
 
Transcript: "So my ski career is obviously less storied than a lot of the people who are on this app, but one of the things that was instrumental to actually wanting me to be a coach was one of, it was a sprint race in the early days of sprinting when they did heats of four, and it was when I learned that perseverance really matters. And I just remember my coach saying, Hey, it's a sprint race, anything can happen. And I was like, I don't know, I'm tired. I've done a bunch of races already in the day, you know, you had to do the qualification and what not. And like, it's like, I'm tired, who knows what's gonna happen, but I don't think I can race against these girls. They're faster than me. And then in the final, like this girl tripped. And I mean, I was almost off the back, but I was like, I gotta try. And she tripped in front of me. And so I ended up on a podium in an oram. And I was like, Hey, that's cool. It's always worth it to keep trying. And I'd like to pass that on."

To prep your skis for a new day, start by brushing them off to remove any dust. Then put 4-6 layers of warm wax, like Swix CH8 Toko Red, and iron it in. Next put one layer of cold wax, like Start Green or Swix CH4/CH5, again ironing tip to tail. Finally scrape off the wax and brush out the base for a good finish.
 
Transcript: "So, new ski day, super exciting, but you gotta prep the bases first. So the first thing to do is brush them out. You want to get off, doesn't matter what kind of brush, copper, nylon, whatever, you just want to get all the dust off from travel and sitting in the shop or wherever they came from. Then you're going to start ironing in some warm wax, and it used to be that people would say, oh put in like eight layers of warm wax, but you can get away with not scraping that off, you can just iron it in, let it cool, and then iron it again, that's your second layer. So I would do somewhere between four to six ironing cools of something like a Swix CH8, Toco Red, any kind of warm wax will work. Then when you've done the last of that, scrape it off. Now you want to put in a hardening layer, and that's going to be one of the really cold waxes. Something like Stark Green or Swix CH5 or CH4 would be great. Toco Blue isn't quite cold enough, you want something a little colder than that. Iron that in, and it's really important, only go tip to tail with the iron, don't go back and forth, because if you're going back and forth, every time the iron stops, or changes direction, it's stopping, and especially when it's a really hot iron on a new ski, that you could end up building some hot spots in the ski base and you don't want to do that. So after you've done your hard layer, scrape it off, brush it out, and you are good to go, put it on the wax of the day, and go skiing. Enjoy!"

I align my everyday behaviors with my philosophy of life by writing down my philosophy every three to four months. My philosophy is a set of bullet points that I try to encourage myself to follow, such as connecting with people, making people feel empowered, and being open to new experiences.
 
Transcript: "Okay, nice question. One of my favorites, how do you align your everyday behaviors with your philosophy of life? Well, my philosophy is basically my foundation for my behaviors. We all have a philosophy, but I think many of us are not aware of exactly what it is. And so only recently in the last three years, I've begun writing my philosophy down every three or four months. So three or four times per year. It's three to five bullet points. And it will be each little bullet point will be short and concise. And it's followed up by a sentence that gives it some context to remind me what I was thinking of when I wrote that down. Usually quarterly or whatever, or from year to year, the philosophy stays roughly the same. But when you read back on them, it reflects changes slightly in my development as a person. But my understanding of what my philosophy of life is, helps me be sort of a consistent person from day to day. And so that's how I align my behaviors is that I simply have a philosophy and my behaviors are reflected within that. Some of mine are, I try to connect with people. I try to make people feel empowered. I try to make myself be vulnerable to new experiences. Have fun with it. Thanks."

We have our athletes set goals in the form of a "goal pyramid" where their outcome goal is at the top and process goals are at the bottom. The process goals are things they can do to achieve their outcome goal, such as extra workouts, lifestyle goals like sleep and nutrition, and mental health maintenance.
 
Transcript: "I could go a lot longer than 90 seconds about goal setting, but it is super important. And we have all of our athletes set goals. We make what we call goal pyramids, or as one ninth grader called it, like, I have a goal triangle. And the idea there is that at the top of the goal pyramid, tippy top little thing, that is your outcome goal for, can be for the season. That's kind of tangible for the athletes that are in high school. And the bottom of the pyramid is much wider, right? And that those are more of your process goals. And the idea is that we try and teach our athletes the difference between an outcome goal, which is usually results oriented, and you have no control over it, and a process goal, which is the stuff that you do have control over. These are the things you can actually do to try and achieve your outcome goals. And so we'll start with usually one outcome goal, and then a couple more like testing goals underneath this race goal. So for example, I want to be able to do my double pull test in a certain amount of time based on past knowledge. And usually that's where the coach comes in, or I got to be able to do 50 pushups without stopping. And then you go below that and you're like, all right, what do I need to do to improve that double pull score? And that's where it's like, hey, I'm going to do an extra double pull workout every week, or I'm going to make sure to get in the gym all summer, do the plan that my coach sent me. And then at the bottom, you've got sort of lifestyle goals, sleeping, eating, drinking, all that good stuff, mental health, things that matter for every single day."