Gus Schumacher

To handle race pain, focus on going as fast as you can and beating people. Additionally, training and practice can help you become more accustomed to the pain.
 
Transcript: "How do I handle the race pain? Honestly, just the drive to beat, people helps me fight that pain and I've had a lot of practice with it with a lot of racing and training helps to. But yeah, the race pain is a little bit of a different beast and I think it really helps just focus on erasing as fast as you can and beating people. It's hard, Eagle, you can't escape it. But the the more you want to win a race, the more that raised pain becomes secondary tertiary of an issue."

My goal for the upcoming season is to place top-10 at World Championships and win 23s in Whistler. I plan to do this by training a lot throughout the winter, racing often, and taking care of my nutrition, mobility and sleep.
 
Transcript: "My goal for the upcoming season. I have a few the biggest one is top-10 at World Championships and plenty te s biggest is winning you 23s in Whistler it's my last year z23 so I'm really excited about that but to do that I really want to be able to train a lot and a lot through the winter just to like keep my resilience high and that means being able to race a lot and feel good the whole time because my fitness is still there and to do that, I also need to take care of the small things like Nutrition and mobility and sleep. All these things, add up to accomplish those goals."

I will train about 1,000 hours this year, but it is important to find a balance between training and rest in order to adapt to the training and not just be tired all the time.
 
Transcript: "How many hours do I train a year this year? I will do about 1,000 maybe slightly under, and it's a little dependent on, you know, if I get sick the rest of the year. But I like, Jessie's answer this question, that that's very individual, and I've worked up on that for many years and made sure that there's a balance there that I can tolerate, and I have enough recovery. Because if you're not resting enough between sessions, you're not going to adapt to them. So it's not that helpful would be better to train less and adapt. Better. And that's always a hard thing to get, right. I think there's not like a ton of things that you can like a ton of hard numbers that you can look at to see if you're adapting or not. I think you just have to go with a coach and based on feel feel if you're like getting better and able to absorb that training and you're not just like tired all the time."

To manage stress before a race, I look at the start list and set outcome goals. I also like to visualize a good result. Additionally, I watch normal TV and talk to my family as distractions. It is important to find the right balance of stress before a race.
 
Transcript: "How do I manage my stress before my race? I've actually practiced myself into a place where I don't get super stressed before races. So I actually work to elevate that stress level a little bit, just by looking at the start list. That's one way to do it. Look at this heartless, who's around me? Think about an outcome goal. I want that will always add stress to me. If I add a specific result goal, I will be more stressed and that can help if I'm too stressed to manage that. I actually like, Rising sometimes. That'll bring make me a little more stressed. If I'm not stressed, but also less stressed, if I'm too stressed but if I visualize a good result that often put me in an even Keel place. Some other things I do or like just watching normal TV. If I want just to kind of distract myself talking to my family sometimes helps because they are good at talking about whatever else but I think making sure because you can be to stress and you can be not stress enough and it's good to figure out which what level of stress you want before a race and then figuring out how to best get yourself there."

I track my training and recovery with a combination of qualitative data (comments in a training log) and quantitative data (e.g. resting heart rate data from my polar watch). This allows me to plan my training for the week and make adjustments based on how I'm feeling.
 
Transcript: "Do I track my training and Recovery with data and what do I do? Yeah, I track my training through a training log which is just an Excel spreadsheet and it's very dependent on my comments. So that's pretty cool qualitative. And then, I also track my training recovery through my polar watch, which is very quantitative and I kind of use that in tandem with my fit like my personal feelings and how I feel waking up to decide what I want to do for the day and I'm a big person. I'm with a plan. I really like to make a plan at the beginning of the week and stick to it, but definitely sometimes if I wake up, not feeling right. I try to trust that and I think a big part of it is just feeling myself, so I'm not. So data-driven, I would say, but I do use the, my resting heart rate data, as a bit of a metric as well as, you know, tracking how I feel in training."

Staying home after high school and attending the University of Alaska Anchorage was one of the best decisions I made in my career. It was difficult to know at the time, but it was important to put thought into what I did after high school. People can be successful just about anywhere if they have the right mindset.
 
Transcript: "A few of the best decisions I've made in my career. The biggest one that Springs to mind is staying home after high school. And that's a big question for a lot of people and that's one that I had a tough time. Spent a lot of time thinking about but I think staying at my house and Anchorage and going to school at University of Alaska Anchorage and staying with my club coach is one of the best decisions I've made as a skier and it was hard to know at the time and for everyone it's different but I think putting a lot of Of thought into what you do after high school is important and people know that but it's a hard decision. And that's the tough thing is it's different for everyone. But I will say, I think people can be successful just about anywhere. If they have the right mindset,"