Life After Finals

Good times. My favorite past time when school isn't in session is to live like a pro skier. It rocks. Wake up, breakfast, train, breakfast 2, nap, lunch, hangout for a bit, train again, dinner, hangout, supper. A solid nights sleep,  a nap, and 5 meals a day is just about the best way to make sure your training gets absorbed correctly. One of my favorite ways of killing a little bit of time before supper (thats the one later in the evening to make sure you don't get hungry when your supposed to be sleeping) is to make something that takes a while to cook. Doesn't have to be fancy, just something that takes some time and thought. This has several benefits. First, it gives you something to do with the time between dinner and supper (rough life eh??). Second, it teaches you how to cook, which is key for number three. Third, you get to decide what is going into your body. This is important because as you know, food is your fuel. Those Ferrari abs and Lamborghini legs of yours HATE it when you give them unleaded, the best deserves premium. So cooking your own food is the absolutely best way to learn more about fuels and how to make them, pretty important for the well rounded athlete. Fourth, if you are indeed doing nothing other than training, sleeping, eating, and reading, as I am right now, you need something to THINK about. One of the biggest pitfalls of full-time athletes is just getting plain bored. If all you have to think about is skiing, you just might hate skiing after a while. So, becoming a gourmet (or just learning how make something other than mac and cheese) gives you something to learn which is fun. And there is enough stuff to learn about cooking that you will almost never get bored. 

Joe "Rachel Ray" Howdyshell