Fuel

You need enough calories to ski, so eating three meals, plus two snacks a day is important. 

• Breakfast: Eat breakfast every day, even if you're not a breakfast person. Your first meal of the day can be small and simple, such as a bowl of cereal or a cup of yogurt.

• Lunch: You need to eat lunch because your afternoon snack before ski practice is not going to be enough to carry you through. The other consequence of not eating lunch is that you could be so hungry right before practice that you eat the equivalent of a meal and you feel overly full and sluggish during practice. 

• Early-afternoon snack: Eat a small snack before coming to practice. Even if you don't think you're hungry, eating a small snack, like a graham cracker or a handful of nuts, is beneficial.  

  • • A gap of three or four hours (or more) between lunch and practice without eating  can cause your energy level to crash while skiing. Snacks also help you stay warmer.  You should eat something within two hours of practice and what is best depends upon whether you have a snack one to two hours beforehand or right before practice. (Ultimately, I don't care what you eat. Just eat something!)

      1. • Between 1:45 - 2:45 pm:  A larger snack could be peanut butter sandwich, granola and yogurt, or an apple and peanut butter.

         • After 2:45 pm: A smaller snack could be a granola bar, dried fruit or a banana.

• Re-fueling after practice: 

  • • Eat a snack within 15 - 30 minutes of finishing a practice or a race, preferably a snack with a combination of carbohydrates and protein. But again, I'm not looking for perfect snacks. The important part is that you eat something. 

    • When you work out, the muscle tissue breaks down. The carbohydrates in a snack (a piece of fruit, for example) stop the muscle breakdown and the protein (string cheese, for example) helps them rebuild. You should have this snack soon after finishing a workout because that is when your body's muscle cells are primed to take in the carbs and protein. (I haven't found a consensus on how soon after a workout. I've read anywhere from as early as 15 minutes to other sources saying you can wait until up to an hour afterward.)

    • You've heard this a million times, "Don't spoil your dinner!" It's a wise warning, though. Your post-practice refueling should be a snack, not a meal. You shouldn't be so full from your "snack" that you're not hungry for dinner- one-and-a-half to two hours later. 

• Dinner: Enjoy a well-balanced dinner. And don't forget to thank the cook and help with the dishes. ;)

Rest and Sleep

You need at least eight to nine hours of sleep a night.  Any reduction in sleep can drastically compromise your body's immune system. When it comes to preparing for a race, it is two nights before that your body needs solid sleep.  For example, if you have a race on a Wednesday, Monday night's sleep is even more important than Tuesday night's sleep. 

Even though you're only skiing with the TCGIS team two to three days a week, many of you are multi-sport athletes. It's important to have at least one day a week of rest in which you're refraining from physical activity equal or greater than an average practice workout.