Race day checklist and evaluation

Bill Koch has always been someone I looked up to as a young skier in Vermont. I remember meeting him several times at the annual Bill Koch Youth Ski League festivals and when I returned home in Vermont in 2010 to help build the SMST2 Team he was a valuable resource for Sverre Caldwell and I. Bill was always an introvert and tight lipped but I think he knew we had a lot in common and as my ski career developed he began offering more substantial advice. Bill has shared training thoughts with me and he is always someone who takes a holistic approach to training and recognized the mental side of competition well before mindfulness was a power word. 

One of the things Bill taught me early on was the importance of a well planned race day. When I was a kid he explained to me how on race days he would write down all the things he was going to do that day, including a detailed time table of his race preparations. This is something I took to heart and is a pre-race ritual I have practiced ever since. I find this writing process allows me to be focused and calm under pressure on race day which aligns with much of what we know about sports psychology today. "focus on what you can control and don't stress about what you cannot" is a staple of race day mental toughness and is exactly what Bill's timetable exercise taught me. 

Over the years I have refined my race day write ups. I think each athlete needs to test this process and feel what works best for them but I have created this sheets as a reference.

I will post the PDF for download HERE. I have included some of my favorite sports psychology quotes as well. I will paste an example of a race day sheet below so you can see a basic example of how I would fill it out. In many circumstances I would be more specific in my timetable but this gives the general idea.