Shake it off

Thu, Dec  11, 2014 - By Anja Gruber

I might not be feeling 22 anymore but Taylor Swift still gets it right.

Friday's sprint qualifier felt like your typical first race: Too short, too fast and all over the place. At least, I thought, it was only going to get better from there. Stupid sprints, I told myself, after the quarter final didn't go as I had hoped either. But when I finished the distance race on Saturday way below my expectations too, I couldn't help feeling like a total idiot.

Hadn't I been working towards these first races since May? Wasn't this my job now? Wasn't I stronger and fitter and skiing technically better than I ever have? How could this have gone so wrong??

I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Thing is, bad races happen. They happen when you are a little beginner skier, a college skier, a hobby skier, or a professional skier. They don't make you a bad skier and they don't mean that the next races are going to be bad. And they definelty don't make you a bad person.

After being a completely spoiled brat when it comes to results as a college racer (5th at NCAAs was my worst result in a college race last year) I think I'm just relearning this.

Luckily, we still have the whole season ahead of us. I love skiing and I love ski racing and I'm super excited for more of both to come!

Thank you Brian Gregg for this little confidence boost. No idea how you made the Olympics if that's true, but I'm going to go ahead and believe you.