Interview With Zach Caldwell

In the meantime I’d like to make a living, as long as that’s OK with everybody.

Advice for athletes training / racing in college?

I’ll try to be brief, at risk of sounding brusque. Here it is: Get real!

I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is — understand the reality behind your goals and the sacrifices involved with being a 24 hour, 365 day athlete. If you’re in it for the fun of it, then more power to you. But if you’ve got high goals in the sport, then educate yourself about what’s involved and don’t assume that you’re doing everything you can.

What are the three most common service mistakes you see athletes or coaches make?

1 – Poor ski selection. Not all skis are created equal and I’ve seen both athletes and coaches pour way too much effort and money into crappy skis. Good skis are a science and an art. The science side is not too difficult, and it can pretty much totally rule-out BAD skis. The art side is as much luck as anything else. I think art is how a ski service guy refers to luck when everything is going well. Anyway, when you get a really great pair of skis it’s like magic. But too many people are looking for magic from stuff that’s just plain bad.

2 — Trying too hard. Once a pair of skis is well set-up, the best thing you can do is ski on them. The less time you spend working on them, the better. Make sure there is wax on them to protect the bases. Make sure you’ve got a good combination of saturation and hardness in your wax layering. But a lot of people spend way too much time ironing wax into their skis and it can be harmful to the structure of the ski.

3 — Winging it. We all like to be creative and try cool things. I know a guy who once tried mixing FC10 with LF3. It’s good to have some tricks like this, but I’ve definitely see people get burned by thinking too much. If you haven’t tried it before then test it before trying it on race skis. Otherwise, read the wax box!

What would you like to see from Eastern Collegiate skiing?

Oh boy — a few people are going to be rolling their eyes right about now. From my point of view, it’s hard to find a worse return on investment if you look at the results that EISA skiers get compared to the resources spent by the programs. I think a huge amount of this comes back to my answer to the previous question about advice to college athletes. I’d like to see the EISA programs acknowledge and support higher goals than the Eastern carnival circuit. I’ve talked to a lot of athletes who have these goals, but they’re operating pretty much in a vacuum.

Try an exercise — add up the hours of training (actual training time, not including games and meetings) in a week of ski team practices. Compare that with the volume that high level 18-23 year-olds are training around the world. I think you’ll find that ambitious athletes need to be supplementing their training a bit! They need to be supported and guided in that process.

The college environment is pretty sweet. A roof over your head, meals prepared, a coaching staff at your disposal, free transportation, entry and wax support at races. There are also academics to consider. The time involved imposes some structure on life, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. As I said, it’s a sweet set-up. The place is breaks down is that I haven’t met many college students who don’t feel entitled to a raging social life. Heck — it’s college!

Well, I think the eastern college programs could probably do a better job helping the kids with the highest level goals and aspirations to navigate the decision making process when it comes to priorities.

On a van ride to Silver Star you once told me that your goal is to tend a garden and ski a lot. How close to this goal are you?

The garden is lush. Last time I looked it was at least four feet high with the thickest, most succulent looking mix of weeds imaginable. Last Summer I actually planted some stuff and got it going before I ran out of time right when everything was coming good. This year I only got as far as getting the thing tilled.

Did I really say that was my goal? I guess I’m not doing to well. I did go up to Mt St Anne with some friends for Christmas last year and I skied three days in a row! It was the highpoint of my season. I think I got pretty fit sometime around 2:00PM on the third day, but by 4:00 I was toast.

So look — can I change my goals retroactively? Truth be told, I’m really happy with life.

More at www.middleburyskiing.org

Andrew Gardner is the Head Nordic Coach at Middlebury College.