Have you ever done anything that you didn’t really expect or believe you could do? Me too. It’s a cool feeling, but actually takes a lot of work to make possible. This blog might get a little specific for some people, because I’m going to talk about how it applies to sprinting.

There’s a common phenomenon in ski sprinting where you advance to a point where you’re satisfied with your performance for the day and feel like you’ve achieved your goals, because you have! There is a problem with this, though, and it’s that you still have more racing to do, and more opportunity to surprise yourself.

I, and probably all of my teammates, have experienced this to a degree. Say I wanted a top 10 and I made the semifinal, all I have to do is be not last and I’ve achieved my goal for the day. Does this seem like a great way to go about racing? Not really, at least in my opinion. There’s no reason to relax because of what you did earlier, you may as well now just race without result expectations. That is usually the best way to race anyway, but even if you aren’t setting specific outcome goals, usually there’s a subconscious expectation for yourself based on what you want or what you’ve done before.

I think the best way to go about this is what everyone loves to talk about, which is focusing on the things you can control. When you have goals that revolve around how you’re skiing, carrying yourself, or attacking a course regardless of your current position, you can compete with much more freedom.

It’s a lot easier to say than do, and as I reflect I’m finding myself realizing that in pretty much every race I do I find myself reaching a point of satisfaction and then needing to reevaluate how I want to continue racing. Once in a while, I will truly settle and take the place that I’m in. Often that is the case when there’s a degree of energy preservation that I what to achieve. Most of the time, however, if it’s going well, I’ll reevaluate and say “why not?” Then I’m free to take that next step and let my mind and body run free.

In the sprint last weekend all of this dialogue happened. I won my quarterfinal (first time I’d ever done that in classic) and secured a top 12, which comes with prize money and already my best classic sprint result ever. Those thoughts crossed my mind and I realized what I was doing, then jogged it off and refocused on the semifinal, because why not?! I felt strong and my skis were good. I continued to race instinctively, trusting myself to not burn too much energy and get into the right positions, and it worked again! I was skiing well, my finish double pole was together, and without the worry about an outcome, I made some cool moves that I wasn’t really even thinking about. (like the one below)

And all of a sudden I was in the final! Then it seriously didn't matter how I did, but I just tried not to think about it too much and let my instincts play it out. I followed Edvin up the main climb, then slotted into 4th over the top, found an open track behind Klaebo up the last climb, went over behind a tiring Edvin, and was able to push around him through the corner to have my best sprint, classic technique, and obviously classic sprint result ever!

Most of my best races have been when this was my mindset. When I could turn off my thoughts and let my subconscious take the wheel. When I was just happy to be there and healthy. When I was enjoying the output my body was providing.

Minneapolis was this 100%. I was so happy to just be there healthy and able to experience racing a World Cup in the U.S.. In some mindsets I would’ve been debilitatingly nervous in that situation, but I was genuinely just happy to be doing it, and as I got the leader splits my body just took over. People call it flow state, and to really achieve it can be fairly hard. I’m not saying I do it all the time, but it’s fun to know that getting there is actually somewhat in my control.

I hope you, in whatever you do, can have moments where you can trust your instincts, go without a plan or expectation, and come out surprised at your capabilities.

We’re in Livigno and Seefeld now for our last training camps before the Olympics. Feeling better than this poor little guy!

Thanks for reading.

Gus