Being back in Morzine, France has been a pretty revealing experience for me. This is a place that in prior years had seen me developing unhealthy habits, struggling with training, getting sick and always feeling completely wrecked. Now, I feel like I am seeing this place in an entirely new way. Creating new memories- happy ones. Appreciating all the beauty this little mountain town has to offer. Being healthy, mentally and physically, can do that.
Morzine 2014:
I had just come off of my first two races of the season- a second at the Chengdu World Cup, followed by a phase of training in Connecticut, and second place again at our Continental Champs in Dallas. I felt fitter than ever, and had seen all the hard work pay off in my performances. When I jetted off to Europe for training camp early June, I was excited and hungry for more.
For some reason, I felt like something had to change since I had raced "well," by performance standards. I was on the national team now. I had to raise my game, and be better every single day.
Turns out, all I needed to do was continue following a simple process: execute to the best of my ability on a daily basis. That was, in fact, the process that got me to where I was at the time.
But, I got greedy. Asking too much of myself, too often, without enough nutrition, rest and self care to manage the stress. I physically and mentally unraveled and ended up leaving France, squeezing another top 5 World Cup performance out of myself at the Jiayuguan World Cup (still don't know how I did this given the state I was in), and then went home to recover for the remainder of the year.
Morzine 2015:
I came to Morzine to do a training block in the lead up to the Tiszy World Cup and Stockholm WTS. For much of my time here in 2015, I was alone. Nothing about my process was healthy, and I felt extremely isolated and low during that time. I went onto Europe and crashed in the semifinals of the Tiszy World Cup and then crashed again in Sweden the day before the race, eventually leading to a DNF on race day from rib, shoulder and neck pain.
Morzine 2018:
I am back in Morzine now, training between world cup races. After Lausanne, I was disappointed, but my response to racing has become much less emotional and much more objective. This doesn't mean that I care less about my performances, it just means that I look at what went well (there is always something we do well in races), and look at what didn't, and come up with a plan of action to get better moving forward. In the past, I would dwell so much after the tough days, that it would ultimately stall the process of just getting on with it and doing my job. So here I am in Morzine, for the first time with a healthy outlook on my career, and my life.
I look forward to continuing to get better, day by day, and keeping this process as simple as possible. I have so much gratitude for the opportunity to be back here in such a beautiful place, and have the ability to create some healthy processes. This includes a lot of hard training, but also some French cheese and pastries, epic afternoon naps and smiles.
Karlovy Vary is up next this weekend!
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