Time according to ski racers

In the pursuit of progress in ski racing, skiers race against time. The students at ski academies spend each week at school working out, tuning skis, getting tutored, doing homework and mentally preparing for the competition of racing. We do all of this preparation so that we can spend time out on the mountain and get the most out of the time that we actually ski.

Each morning, we spend around three or four hours at the mountain, and each race day we spend about seven hours at the ski area where our race is being held. Yet, upon closer inspection, when one calculates the amount of time actually spent skiing, not on the lift or in the lodge, the time on the snow is amazingly small.

On average, it takes about fifteen minutes to take one run from the bottom of the lift to the top, down the hill and back around to the bottom again. Yet, it really only takes one minute or so to ski down the trail.

So, for every fifteen minutes spent on the hill, only one minute is spent actually skiing. Therefore, every hour only produces four minutes of skiing, and of that time only a small fraction is actually spent running gates where the coaches watch us and try to help us improve.

In a full season we might have fifty races, but for each of those race days, when we spend six or seven hours at the race, we really only race for about two minutes. Of all of our races combined, we may race for less than two hours.

Thus, we are constantly on a mission to get the most out of each turn, out of each run, out of each second that our skis are on snow.

Although taking a couple free runs on the weekend may not seem as if it will make a big difference, it is four or five more minutes on snow and in the ski racing world, of hundredths and milliseconds, that can make a difference and bring each us of that much closer to achieving our goals. It isn’t surprising that progress improving one’s technique is made across seasons of racing rather than hours or days on the hill.

Unlike other sports, in which an athlete may put in three hours of practice and in that training spend three hours actively doing that sport, ski racers dedicate hours and hours to training and only get minutes and seconds of skiing.

Yet when asked why they participate in such a time consuming sport, any skier will answer that every hour spent in the tuning room or freezing on the lift is worth each little second spent flying down the slopes or in a course.