Developing A Sustainability Plan
By Holly Brooks
You probably have a training plan but do you have a sustainability plan?
If you’re part of an organized program and have a coach, chances are you have a yearly training plan. You may know how many hours you plan to ski this week, month, and season. Your training will be periodized around your racing schedule and there are different focal points for different times of year.
Having a training plan is great but it’s all meaningless if you burn out. I’ve struggled with this myself and witnessed many other skiers, some at very high levels, experience the same. The years I was racing the World Cup I would depart in November and wouldn’t return to the United States until late March or early April. Holidays were spent in hotel rooms and relationships with friends and family consisted of Facetime if we could hit the ten-hour time zone difference just right. It’s all good eating three meals a day in a restaurant-type setting while on vacation but when it becomes your everyday reality sometimes all you want to do is cook or even wash dishes for heaven’s sake!
Thus, in order to avoid burn out I would invite you to sit down with a blank piece of paper and conduct a brainstorming session. Start with these simple questions:
(It should be noted that I do recommend a sustainability plan in both the training season and racing season…. Tailor your brainstorm and plan to whichever is relevant for you right now.)
- What makes you happy? What gives you energy?
- What are the things you miss while on the road or away training or competing?
- Do you thrive with 100% of your focus on ski training and/or racing or do you do well with positive distractions? (Think school, non-profit involvement, artistic endeavors, etc)
- Are you an introvert or extrovert meaning, do you need alone time to recharge your batteries or do you love being around groups of people all the time? (This goes for time spent on & off skis)
- What are your go-to forms of self-care and do you practice them?
You may be saying, “I need some examples!” Here are some of my answers:
- Skiing, of course makes me happy and I do love a great interval set but I also love adventure and exploring new places. During my international competition period it was really fun for me to create new experiences via truly seeing the places I was in. This meant eating the local food, talking to strangers, veering off the competition tracks and occasionally getting lost on the tourist trails.
- I missed friends, family, convenience and familiarity – oh, and laundry! We always traveling with US peanut butter, coffee, and other fun snacks to remind us of home. I made it a priority to correspond with friends who knew very little about ski racing and found that refreshing! Also, fun fact – but all six girls on the National Team had a stuffed animal that we traveled with. (Yep!)
- While ski racing was my main focus I found it helpful to have something else going on in the event that ski racing wasn’t going well. I earned the first ½ of my master’s degree while bouncing from one country to the next.
- I am a hybrid introvert/extrovert meaning I LOVED time with the team but only if I could balance that with time alone. Sometimes this meant communicating to others and saying, “I care about you guysandI need a solo ski/meal/shopping trip/jog/etc.”
- My self-care measures were long, hot showers, early morning silence, solo jogs, and everything mentioned above :)
Last but not least, it should be mentioned that your sustainability plan will and should be different than those around you! One of my favorite quotes is one by Eleanor Roosevelt and it is, “comparison steals joy.” Be confident and true to your own plan be in a training plan OR a sustainability plan!