Bend Into Balance: Tommy Ford, Olympic Skier & World Champion

With ski racing parents from Vermont and Oregon it was no wonder skiing became easier than walking for Tommy. Mt Bachelor was the playground where he grew. Soon after finishing public high school Tommy simultaneously joined the US Ski Team and Dartmouth College. After a couple of years of competing in DH, SG, GS and SL on the World Cup and at the 2010 Olympics, Tommy broke his femur. During his recovery Tommy spent his time at Dartmouth studying Studio Art. Through forced absence from sport he discovered what art could do to tame his restless energy. Over the next several years he was able to build into a World Cup win, two podiums, two more Olympics, more injuries and recoveries, and a World Champs Gold. This being his 19th season on the US Ski team, Tommy is amidst a return from injury. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, my name is Adriana Marino, and I'm host and producer of Ben and to Balance. Today I'm very happy and honored to be accompanied by skier and local to bend Tommy Ford. Tommy, thank you so much for being here. It's so exciting to finally meet you in person after you know these months of text messages and whatnot. And I really appreciate you know making the time for speaking with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you, Andreana. I'm glad it lined up.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah, thank you. So tell us like how tell us how did you get into Alpine skiing? How did that journey begin for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

It all started with my parents. They both raced and coached for most of their lives. And I guess it started with their grandparents who have learned how to taught themselves how to ski both from both sides. And then um I was basically born into it. My brother raced, and this is all I really knew. It's what I wanted to do from two years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Two years old? Do you have memories from then? Do you remember? No, just pictures, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, pictures and stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

I grew up like on the back of my parents going up the chair when I was allowed.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

And uh the feeling early. Wow. And was did this happen at Mont Bachelor? Were you was Mom Bachelor your first?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yep. Yep. Grew up skiing on Mont Bachelor from day one.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Wow, I didn't know that. Okay, that's great. And so when did you discover that, you know, not only did you love skiing, but that it could also become like the focus of your work life as well? How did that evolve?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Um Yeah, that's an interesting question. I guess I was just doing doing what I loved for a long time and played soccer and all that. And um at some point, my parents took me to go to Colorado and watch a World Cup in Beaver Creek. And I was able to be a part of the Talon Crew, which is the course crew that maintains the course during the race. And I was able to get out on the on the hill and slip and inspect and actually see the terrain and the racers preparing themselves and see their speed and like power during the race and the whole thing go down. And these are people I grew up watching on TV, and so it's really exciting for me to see. I can imagine, yeah. When I was in person, I was like, oh, this is this is real, like this is doable, like this is a thing that people do. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna head towards that.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Oh, really? And how how old were you that in in that moment?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I was probably 12.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Uh-huh.

unknown 2:39

Somewhere around there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

What was it about that moment that really pulled you in?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I mean, one thing that sticks out is watching um Osai Chus or it might have been um Ahmot, these two Norwegians who were dominant back in the day. And um I just remember him standing in the sun at the start, and it was nice and sunny, but a cold day. He didn't have his suit top on, he's just in his long underwear, just sitting there enjoying the sun with his eyes closed, and like had this little bit of a gut, like all a power gut. Yeah. And it was just like cool to see that peacefulness before this intense race run. And I I think that kind of just stuck with me from there.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Uh-huh. Wow. So at age 12, you already had this idea, I want to take this seriously.

unknown 3:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

I just knew it was a possibility, and I it wasn't it never became too serious until later on. Like obviously, it was my focus. At some point, I I went from soccer to focusing purely on skiing in high school, but it was just like we had such a great group, it was all fun. And um shout out to Pat Robeson who just passed, and he was our coach back back then, one of our coaches, and he was all about making sure we had fun and she'd have fun. And um, that was a big part of our upbringing. And as a group, we just loved going fast too. And that was part of like playing around and skiing powder. We also loved being in the gates and like pushing each other. And from there on, it was like that mentality went all the way up into the World Cup when I was started qualifying for races, and then it started to get a lot more attention and just exposure to these faster, bigger races like the Olympics and whatnot. And it's like these started to become a little more serious in that scenario. And when it became more serious, I had a little harder time uh performing.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Um yeah, it just becomes like kind of you get taken into your head a little more. I did, I got taken into my head a little more. It was just like I was 21 or something when I went to the Vancouver on the fix in 2010.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

And it was just a lot. I was pretty young compared to a lot of the other racers, and um yeah, a lot of friends came up to from Oregon to watch, and that was very special. Family was there, and I hadn't had anyone really come to races before because I've been racing all along without sure. It's just so much focus on me and the whole world, and just the scary thing. It was pretty special, but I was so nervous throughout that whole thing, and um I can imagine cameras everywhere, and uh so that took me a while to get used to. It took me years and injuries to get through, but uh eventually figured out ways of learning how to play in such scenario scenarios.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah, how did you have how did that meant mindset evolve with time and experience?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Oh probably through brutal injuries and uh yeah, I think injury was a big part of it. Um I've had a fair amount of injuries over my career, and while it it's not what completely defines me, I've learned a lot of things from injury and how to accept some really tough scenarios, um, and learning how to uh shed my identity as a ski racer and just discover other parts of myself and what's out there in the world. There's there's more to it than just racing and and performing. For sure, yeah. And that took uh I broke up my femur in 2013. And that took me like two years to realize I wanted to ski racing and then get the strength back and recover to actually get back into it.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Um, and why in the meantime I went to school at Dartmouth and studied art, and that was my outlet at the time because all I knew before that was skiing and movement, and I couldn't really move.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

The way I was used to.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

How did that accident happen? Because I r saw a little clip of you talking about it, and it wasn't performing necessarily or competing.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

No, it was out free skiing between races um with a buddy of mine. We were in France and just yeah, got a little over our heads and went well into over a blind roll, basically a cliff, and crunched my leg and sprained my back into rocks and trees. Oh my gosh. I was lucky to not fall any further. Um, because there's a good drop beyond that. It's a good two-hour rescue time to get out of there to a helicopter and get to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Wow. Was that your first serious accident?

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah. Uh yes. That was definitely the most serious.

unknown 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

What's going through your mind in that moment when you're a top Olympic skier? You're you were quite young then. Yes. I mean, you still are young. The best.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Um, yeah, I think I was 23 at the time. And yeah, it's kind of like I've lost it all. Like, this is just like I'm gonna be lucky to walk again. I might lose my leg. All this is all happening within like seconds. Yeah, seconds, and shedding that whole just like, and then I was also in this really hairy situation, and I had to get out of it. And my buddy is a really good skier, Max Hammer. He skied down to me and he had basically like a like a mountain goat to get down to me. Breakaroski. But break to where I was, he couldn't reach me. Um, it was too steep and too like too sketchy for him to get actually to me. So I had to hoist myself out to get to him. So that's uh I was forced to accept the situation very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Oh my gosh. Um, and I had to hoist myself to him with excruciating pain, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, my leg was just dangling under me. Like it's not yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Um my wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

So uh yeah, it's learning that's uh the not there's other ways of learning how to accept in tough situations.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

You were forced to. And how did the recovery happen after that accident? That must have really shaped your career afterwards, I imagine.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, it it really did. I was not sure if I went on the ski race again after that for a while. I was really shocked and scared. Scared and pretty out of it. And it's like eventually, like the initial healing took place. Um my buddy Renee Bates and physical therapist really guided me through the L process and at least part of the process in the beginning, and then once I was more capable of walking, I went to school and did more healing there, and then tried to I skied like two days, and this is like I had the rod in my femur, and uh it's like you could tell it's it's like not gonna work to race at a high level because you know ice, it's like cement, and your bones are supposed to flex. Yeah. And with a rod in it, your bones don't flex. So that's uh that's a like 30 centimeter rod or something. So I decided to get the and from stories of from other racers who had traumatic injuries in their lower legs with rods, they'd like they had a really hard time getting back into racing. So through those stories and my experience, we decided to take the rod out for 11 months. Okay. Um and that was another two-year or sorry, four-month recovery. So I finished school that year and I at some point I discovered like, yeah, I do want to ski race. Like this is still like still I love doing that. And yeah, that's what I wanted to do, and um just really made a long-term, like vague long-term goals of just like kind of benchmarks, but it was mostly excuse me, mostly about getting back to it, like at my own pace and while listening to my body and yeah, doing what felt right, staying true to myself.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

So that took I don't know, I got back into it, I started slowly racing again, and after 2013, 2015, I started the World Cup, and then 2019. By that point I'd built up and had uh built a team around me and had a team built around me, and I built around them. It was great uh dynamic, and uh lucky to work with my great servicemen, uh Daniel Andesilich, he's Croatian.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So we're still very close, and um, we eventually won a race in Beaver Creek. Yeah, circle.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

That was the year that you got first place in the World Cup in 2019?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

That's amazing. Just I mean, uh like five years after the accident practically.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah. And uh in some ways it's slow, some ways it's fast. It's lucky to be able to get there.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, I can imagine.

unknown 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

What did that accident and the recovery, you know, leave you with? What were your biggest takeaways as an athlete?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

And as a person, of course, you know, just um well, I mean, acceptance is huge, just learning to accept things. I still struggle with it. I'm still like that's like why I'm talking about it so much now is partly because I'm uh telling learning to relearning to accept things again. Like more struggles, and it's just an important part of uh getting through life and enjoying life. And I also learned that the body is amazing and he and heal really well. Um if you let it, some intervention helps too. And um I remember uh in the French hospital, I had my leg was super swollen. I could barely stand. I was getting such such big head rushes, I lost a lot of blood in the surgery. And I went down and saw this woman who's a physical therapist, and she puts her hands on my leg, and she's um she's like she's got a very heavy French accent. She's like, and I'm a little bit like a witch. She puts her hands on my legs and just does these really subtle movements, movements, and it's not really massage in like the traditional sense, and my swelling just dropped, like drastically, like doubled or halved.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

And oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

That was pretty powerful for me to experience that. And I uh learned to give other modalities uh more of a chance, and really gone down the path of acupuncture and physical therapy and other massage treatments and energy treatments.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah. I'm sure that also many individuals must have intervened in your process of recovery, and I can imagine there's like a lot of gratitude towards a lot of these people.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

There's so many, so many people and so many practitioners, and um that had been very helpful along the way. Um like I was working at rebound for a long time, doing rehab there, and then working at capacity, uh doing rehab there, um Ellie Merowitz, Lay Bates have been staples of her recoveries over the years. Um I've seen Kelly Cooks over at Desert Des Desert Lotus and Cassandra.

unknown 14:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

This kind of keeps going. Yeah. Uh had support for Mount Bachelor for years, and those uh sponsors are a big help to keep me going because there's times where you're really low on income and sure recovering, and it takes time, and you feel that pressure to get back to maintain a living too. And it's it's uh that's an odd scenario. And not to mention my parents who've been a big supporter from day one and and uh not adding extra pressure, just only support. It's been super fortunate.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah. During those moments of recovery, what is more challenging, like the physical rehabilitation or kind of the mental battle that you're not where you want to be, and that you have to give time to time in order to heal and be back at your game? What's harder?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Oh, I think I think the the pain is pretty tough in the beginning. Yeah. And just not being able to move and kind of you go from like full-on uh physical movement and activity and exercise to nothing. And it's like you have a little withdrawals from that movement, and that's that's hard for sure for a while. And there's painkillers just getting through all that. But once you get that clear from the system, it it's you still got ways to go mentally, and that that part is kind of ongoing and it just changes you forever. And it's having to accept those changes, so I accept and skip coming up.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. Yeah. So fast forward, you know, 2019, you winish you finished your first World Cup in first place. How did your career begin to evolve from there?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

I mean must have been I mean, it really evolved before that coming up into it is just years of work and just lots of testing and trust and building up uh routines and different rituals.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Uh so that was kind of the pinnacle of of Right, of course.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

No, I didn't want to undermine that process. Yeah. And speaking which, to which Tommy, like, you know, most of us, you know, when we see you on, you know, at that competition, whether that's a World Cup or the Olympics, you know, we're seeing you for a minute, a minute and a half. But be, you know, behind that, there's just hours and hours of training. Like, what does a typical year of training look for you in order to make it to these scenarios um, you know, these world-class events?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Um we usually have April through July off snow. Um, there's some small camps here and there in the spring. And then we're doing dryland training. Uh, we get about a month where we really take it easy. And then uh Dryland starts up, and we're training basically five to six times a week, usually twice a day, uh, at three to four hours in the gym, um, like three days a week, and then outside doing like running or hiking some cardio stuff and uh maintaining core constantly and building core, and it's constantly you're trying to make like build all these different systems. Like you're that's not just strength or cardio, it's just find the coordination and the perfect harmony of all of our amazing uh bodily systems. Yeah. And um by August we usually head down south. Uh, we as a tech team, we usually go to New Zealand. Um three to four weeks there. Um the speed guys typically go to Chile and Argentina.

unknown 17:36

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Uh in that yeah. And sometimes I would do both. I'd go down the Chile after New Zealand. New Zealand. Uh yeah, they were down, we're doing that all the way through like September, halfway through September, we get a couple weeks off and then head to Europe and I'll make start training the glaciers. And our first race is October on Solomon Glacier, the Rettenbach Glacier in Solomon, Austria. And from there on we're racing all the way to end of March. Wow. Full year, and then it repeats.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

And when you're skiing, you know, full on from October to March, it's skiing every day. How many hours? How does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

It's not every day, but it's like usually three days, two to three days on, take a day off, two to three days on. Yeah. Or you kind of work backwards from a race day and kind of build up into that.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Um, kind of tapering volume and just working on quality by the time it becomes race time. And um, we usually train from like 7:30 to 10 in the morning and have some rest and lunch and some recovery, like PT work on um and then the afternoons or do some dryland maintenance work in the winters, okay. Lifting or core or some biking or stationary bike or hiking or something.

unknown 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Got it. And I know you've specialized in giant slalom. Like what physical characteristics are really needed for this type of racing that most people wouldn't expect.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um giant slalom is yeah, it's like 22 to 25 meter radius turns. And that means there's just like yeah, about 25 meters between gates.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Those skis really bend up. They're pretty stiff, and like you gotta be able to bend them, and that's where the all the speed comes from, is bending those skis. It's like a slingshot. You the more you flex them, the more they release synergy. So you can't really be able to stack your body in a way that you put optimal force in, and it's full exertion at every turn. And it's an explosive move. Um, it's not like all at once, it's kind of a build, and it takes about half a second to build. And at the apex, you're fully your body's fully tensioned up and you're rigid for just a split second to like hit that punch, basically, you're punching out of it, and then you release, and you gotta be able to release immediately and just let it flow down the hill. Well, this mix between like ice and water.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

And um, I think uh like core strength is a huge thing because you're it's a lot of rotational forces. Okay. Um and the more you can uh maintain stability through your sh hips and shoulders, the more you can stay over your skis, and the more you stay over your skis, the more the skis bend, and the more speed you carry.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, so a lot of balance, coordination, and uh gauging speed and spatial awareness.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah. How did you decide that this is what's the area of focus that you wanted to do as a skier?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

I mean, I I raced all rate all disciplines at the World Cup level for a couple years, and then slowly tapered down to more super G in GS. UG is uh more it's closer to downhill, like fast, more flowing of the train, still big turns, but you're going like 20 miles an hour faster than GS. Um and I was good at both of them. Okay. Just kind of over the years, they more the more I became injured, is it's kind of hard to maintain the volume for to keep the skills as uh honed in more than one event. And I was always, I guess, better at GS. Okay. I mean, I enjoyed them all. So yeah. Love doing GS. Those turns are hard to hard to beat.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Uh-huh. What what is it about skiing that makes it your sport? Like, is it being outdoors? Is it having this incredible landscape behind you? Is it the adrenaline? Is it just the combination of everything? I mean, I'm a skier, very humble, but I you know, I'm just curious what it is for you, you know?

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, I mean, it's like all you said right there. It's like outside, you know, side in the mountains, it's just it's special. Yeah, spending time all day out there. It's so cool to be able to get up in these high alpine regions and and you've seen it all.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Seen a lot.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Not all of it.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

A lot though. Yeah. More than most of us for sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Um, and there's this cool cultures around it all over the world. Everyone's got their different way of approaching it. Uh some adrenaline's involved for sure. That's that's a blast. Like being able to keep uh keep calm amongst the chaos is pretty cool. Yeah. It's like I've never actually um done the foiling.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

You know, uh like while on water, like the foil board so they're pumping around on or like surfing with a hydrofoil.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

That's just super smooth and like they're on like really rough waters that it tracks below the surface, so it goes really smooth. And just imagine um it must feel really nice. I've never done that. Yeah. And it's like being able to stay calm and so clean and carving and smooth in a course is kind of kind of like that. Let me imagine. Okay. Yeah, I got it. Maybe not feel the same way, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah. So when you're at the gate and you're, you know, the cameras are on you and you're competing. Um what's going through your mind before you actually start your race? How do you keep the calm amidst everything goes through your mind?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Um, you can think about what's for lunch. Uh, do you think about what could happen, good or bad? Um think about results, you can think about all these things. It it happens every time.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Really?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, and it's um it's uncomfortable. And the closer you get to the start, the more it's like a pressure cooker. It's like more those thoughts get louder and heavier, and just really yeah, it's it's really uncomfortable. It's uh that's a not a fun part of racing. Um, but it takes I've taken I've worked with a mental coach over the years, Mark Payette, and he's helped me uh be able to sit with those thoughts and uh stay anchored and just move through, move through it um while they're still there. Like they're gonna maintain, they're gonna come and go. And the trick is letting go of them. It's easy to be attached to those ideas, like, oh, maybe I'll mess up on that fourth gate, and then I can spiral very quickly, and then like I can go into results, and like, oh, or if I don't qualify for this race and blah, blah, blah, blah. And just catching yourself, I'm like, okay, that's those were thoughts, and I'm here to stand present, return into something that's here, whether it's the mountain ridges and just following it with my eyes, or um following my breath and just really anchoring my attention and uh not shutting things out too harshly, which is a pretty easy practice to do as well. Um, so it's uh it's a it's a tricky balance to maintain. Um, you know, it takes practice. It's not just oh, I'm gonna show up race day and here we go. Yeah, I think it's uh it's yeah, all that all the all that surrounds a race, like the media and the clout venue and the fans and all that just amplifies it. So yeah, but better be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Yeah. When you look back on your career or on your best races, do you remember something that you did differently that day or thought differently, or a different mindset that served you?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Um, I wouldn't say anything too different. I think I just trusted myself more and trusted the unknown more and uh had been more consistent leading up to the race with that process. Yeah. Um and was clear with it. Uh it wasn't too different than other races. Okay, got it. I had moments in the past where like maybe 2016 or something, I I wanna run their World Cup, and it was kind of like a little bit out of the blue.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

That was that was very recently out of your recovery from your injury in 2013.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

If uh yeah, it was fairly recent. It was one of the first big races you did then. Like second year racing in.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Excuse me. And I barely qualified for second run. You need to get top 30 to qualify for two runs.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And I think it was 30th or something, and barely got by by a couple hundredths of a second.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

And the next race, I was just like, or the next run was just like an hour or two later. I just from there on, I just really made from finishing first run, I just maintained uh a determination and a focus on that present moment and just stuck with it. No matter what. I was very determined with that. Just came through the finish and it's like, nice, that was good. And like you had to wait for all these other racers to come down, and no one beat that tie.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

But then it was like took three more years to like, what does it happen there? Like, it just kind of happened that day.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

It took some guidance. I try and start to Bernard and affirm that and guide me, guide me further with it.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Earlier on, you were mentioning how much fun you used to have when back in the day when you began training with MBCF and with you know your buddies. You were, I imagine, a teenager at that time before you started competing in the world, you know, level. Um, were you always able to just keep that element of fun throughout these more competitive years, Tommy?

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Um, I think it ebbed and flowed. I mean, the skiing part was always fun. I once I got on the course, it was a blast. And I struggled more with the what surrounded it and the travel and uh the work it took sometimes and the dry land, and yeah, all of that was uh less fun at times. Um but I did learn to enjoy dry land and training, and uh it's not necessarily fun and still isn't necessarily fun, but it I do enjoy the movements and and the efforts that you have to required to put in it. It's there's something to it. Like it's like doing hill sprints with a wheelbarrow are they're brutal. But it's like that's how cool is that you feel good that afterwards like you can do that, yeah. Um yeah, and like I said with the 2010 Olympics, it was like that was not that much fun, honestly. It was it was a lot, it was a lot of nervous nerves, and I think I was like sick in my stomach most of the time. So I can't imagine yeah, it was tough. But I definitely returned to it to return to skiing, and that was that's I've been the anchor throughout. And um a couple years ago was definitely a struggle. I had a hard time throughout the whole season. Um but at the at the end of the season, I was kind of like, okay, like something drastically has to change, or I'm I'm gonna stop. Because I've always said like I'm gonna keep doing it as long as I'm enjoying. And yeah, it was a tough season in that term in terms of that. Um, so it's been able to learn to enjoy more and more of it since then. Yeah. Yeah. Ebbs and flows.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah, I can imagine. Like everything in life. Yeah. And during these years, Tommy, besides, you know, the intense training that you've done, like where does sleep fall, stress management, like proper nutrition, you know, what what's that wellness component look like? How much do you rely on other like lifestyle interventions, if you will, um, besides just the intense physical training that you must do as a top athlete?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Yeah, I mean, sleep's big for me. Um, I've tried to like really get enough sleep and sleep on these schedules and stuff, but I have a hard time being sticking really to it. It I the like it just changes with the training in a way, it drains your energy.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Naps come up. I can try to take naps usually when I'm training head heavy. And so the sleep schedule gets kind of wacky and I kind of stressed over it for a while, and it just like that just made it worse. And I just sleep when I sleep, and uh sleeping better these days kind of hard. Sleepy time tea turns out to be nice window for me.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Um, and winding down is actually really important for me at night. Uh I learned that after I broke my femur. Like that year, or the next year, even, I was not sleep. I was waking up in the middle of the night and it's like wide awake, like starving. Like it was like a heat, and like that was so strange. And I learned that it was kind of like an adrenaline is kicking in the middle of the night. And yeah, it's like, okay. So I learned at some point that someone was recommended some uh adrenal like supplement or something. Yeah. Like didn't want to mess with that because it might have been against the Uxada rules for drug testing. Um, so second thing that I could do was behavioral changes and so learn to calm down and wind down at night and not do whatever I was doing before. And yeah, um, still gotta do that, and it just it it helps for sure. It makes a big difference. Definitely takes a conscious effort.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah. Yeah, to make a habit.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah, a habit. And it's like, yeah, I'm like gonna stop doing this or watch the TV or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Go drink some tea and read or something.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah. And what about like nutrition and other aspects of you know health? How does that look in your life?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

It's very mellow. I don't like I you try to eat well and eat uh high quality foods and try to keep a balanced diet.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Like changing up the the protein types. I eat everything, but try to change up the how often I'm eating red meat and for instance. Sure. Yeah, eat fish a little more often and make sure I'm getting enough carbs and um rice potatoes, staple these days, pasta. Um I did learn this last couple years. I mean, I've probably heard it for years, but actually like eating enough, especially during a recovery or like it recovery from an injury.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Um there's so much energy demands on your body when you're recovering, your body's healing, and you're working out while you're healing. So it's almost double the demand. So you gotta really maintain even though you're not moving nearly as much. I wasn't moving nearly as much as um I normally do, you know, training and not nearly as heavy. I was eating the same amount, and that really helped me day to day with my energy. Okay. That just learning that it takes days to really build up energy stores, and that's made a big change in like being able to show out for training and this that I not feel just drained and not wanting to do it. It's like, okay, I can do this. Like it feels like those little tweaks, so it's like that's kind of a bummer. It took me this long to learn that, but yeah. Um yeah, it's it's amazing what we're learning. I think the learning as a society simple tweaks like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

For sure, yeah. And there's so much attention now on health, wellness, longevity that it's an interesting place to be. Just so much research is out there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah, that's that's cool. That's we're pretty fortunate this time, this in this era, to have the doctors we have and research we have and uh training knowledge you have. It's become more and more efficient.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah. And you seem to be very blessed to also have lived in Bend all these years because there's such a community of practitioners, therapists, doctors. From everything you've told me, you've been in in really good hands.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yeah, it's uh yeah, very fortunate to have this community here. It's pretty cool. It's a it's like a pretty naturally active town. So the water and the trails and mountain right there. And it comes with what comes with activity is some aches and pains. And yeah, this community is really grown around the movements of the rivers and the mountains. It's really cool to see that.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah. Do you still get up to Mount Bachelor a lot?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Uh-huh. I mean, I haven't been here that much in the winters over the past couple years. Sure, of course. Nearly as much as I'd like to. Yeah. Spring times I usually am around and miss, yeah, I miss skiing here because I know it so well. And yeah. And uh, watching all these snowboard videos these days is fun to see because they they really play with it all the terrain. Yeah. We didn't growing up, so it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

What are your favorite runs up on a batch there?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I mean, we claim we train on cliffhanger all the time. Okay. And it's garden.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

I love Ed's Garden.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

It's just probably one of my favorite ones. Um tippy toe, coffee. Like I love those steep ones. Get nice when they groom them nice.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Uh that's great for carbon.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Kangaroo, do you like?

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Leeway.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, Leeway is a classic.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, it's my favorite. I think it's the one I went down the most this season.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah, this season.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I know, but leeway is the best when you take it from the back, beginning on outback, you know?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know that there's a place where the mountain dips and then it goes up again? And there's just the view of the three sisters and um broken top from there is just it just pays the day for me. Like, yeah, I love Lee Way from the back.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Know that route very well. I'm sure you do. We trained all those guards. We had to ride outback to get you a pop. And from the top outback, we had like all these runs through the trees and jump trails and like little bank turns. Yeah. Yeah. Found these jumps. Um, one's called triple nipple.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

And then you pop out right there. Wow. That that that that transition from the over towards Leeway.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

I think I know where you're talking about. Yeah. I can tell you're a lot of memories are coming to your mind. Yeah. The way your eyes are lighting up, like years of training back there with bodies.

unknown 36:11

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Years and years and lots of rounds.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah. I wonder how many ski days you have in your 37, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Yep. 37. I have no idea. I've never counted in a year, actually.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah. Most a lot more than most of us for sure. What does this next season look like for you, Tommy?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Uh a lot up in the air. I I had a big injury in January 2025. Tried to return back to racing, but my knee was too unstable. So I had another surgery in March of 2026. And uh I'm currently recovering from that. And we'll be I'll be lucky to be able to ski. Uh, so let alone race. Um anyway, that uh yeah. So I'm not putting anything on hold really right now. I'm trying to put uh my feelers out, see what I can do and recover, recover well, and uh be open to what comes next.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

One thing you mentioned to me is that you might be going back to school and finishing up right art? Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Is that uh that's a possibility, yeah. Right. Um I haven't quite finished school. I got four terms left, like one full year. Yeah, that's one option to go back and kind of get my mind going in the direction of something else. I basically finished my major with art, so I need to finish a couple distributive classes and um like electrodes and yeah, like I said, keep it open. Yeah, come you got some different interests, I gotta explore explore them in a little more doubt.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Mm-hmm. What has art provided you with in these years of you know, training, recovery, back to training, back to recovery, you know, like it must be a great outlet for a lot.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Yeah, I mean, after I broke my femur, it was a really good outlet into um because it was the closest to skiing I could do that wasn't skiing.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Um tell me about that. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Yeah, I don't know. It's like I would really tune into the material I was working with. I was a sculptor and I did audit metal work and um just you kind of listen to and look at the material like you would skiing and inspecting a course and looking at the snow. Um, and then you kind of just do what comes yeah, whatever it's what we call be called to do, and uh that just felt the most like expressive I could think I could do and uh skiing was my expression before that. So I learned to carry that forward into uh practice outside of skiing to maintain that mental practice of just expression, but also staying anchored and present when I'm not forced to through adrenaline, and that's like uh that's helped me perform over the years. Um like uh like I said with those pressure situations with the media and uh the race and all of that and the starting gate. Uh that's one way of practicing is is in your hotel room you can draw.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah. You can take it anywhere. Yeah. Do you continue to draw?

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I yeah, I do little sketches here and there and um I love to get my hands on some sc sculpting again, some at some point, but that's uh someday.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Uh I did uh did a lot of work with oil pastels. I like like the vivid colors, uh how quickly you could use them and how smooth they were. Yeah, it's kind of my go-to for a while.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Yeah. And are you still doing it a lot now? And that you're kind of recovering from your last injury?

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Um, it's been less and less. Uh not less and less, but it's I've been slowly doing more and more, I should say. Okay. It's been kind of it's hard to get into it sometimes. Uh it really forces you to look at yourself and the page, and um, that's not always comfortable. Yeah. So it's uh one of those, yeah. I've been doing it more and more, but it's uh slow process.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Okay. And when you're in this process of recovery, Tommy, um, how are you maintaining your activity level in a way that is compatible with recovery? That makes sense. Because it must be hard for you not to do some sort of movement being such an active.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

It's very hard. And uh I gotta balance, I gotta watch my swelling, and that's kind of what the monitor I use, the metric. So I see how swollen I get in my knee and uh um how sore I am the next day. And if it's not too bad, then I can keep moving, doing the physical therapy and doing the um little extracurricular, which is more walking. Yeah. At this point, I was swimming a little more, uh, which is great. Water in general has been huge. Yeah. Um and I can start biking soon, I think. I'd say to get the strength up for that, but uh I I've been biking on indoors, uh-huh, which is a little less fun, but something.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

On a static bike, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Yeah. Yeah. Stationary and uh doing some other lifting and strengthening work in the gym just to kind of get the general strength up.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Because that does signal to your your weak leg that it's okay to build muscle and then keeps it actually stronger and more muscle mass if you keep the rest of your body strong and keep keep feeding it the signal of uh high output.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

It's interesting how so many times we learn more from these setbacks than from victories.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yeah. It is. It's you learn you learn a lot about yourself and like how you'll come out of it. Um victories are they're uh very fleeting. And they can be a lot to learn from them too, and they can they're not all good either.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Yeah. For sure. What do you think this last year and a half from your second big accident has taught you at this point of your life?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Um It's kind of been a return to what I learned back with my femur. It's uh to really take it slow and trust my body and not really force force anything with this and take the time I need. I was chasing uh timelines a little more the last couple injuries, and it just was not didn't heal nearly as well and just didn't uh enjoy it. It was a lot more pain and kind of just caused some complications. And so just remembering to take take the time it takes. Yeah. And letting myself take days off a little more and learning to just be a little easier and um not as rigid with my routines, more flexibility, watching a little more World Cup than I would normally.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

You were a soccer in the back in the day before you went so concentrated on skiing. You mentioned you loved soccer.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Yeah, we played we played soccer in middle school with extreme. Uh it was pretty full-on team. We would travel all over the Northwest, and we were pretty good for a little while, and that definitely shaped how I moved forward as an athlete. Really skiing.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Well, we continue to play pick up soccer as a team.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Okay. You continue today with the same team members, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Well, no, not not the soccer team, more the ski team. Uh everyone kind of played some soccer over the years. Yeah, pick up soccer. If we are usually in like a tennis court that has the the net taken down because it's winter time. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Those are those are really fun games. Um I mean, just learning how to run hard and like play and like just know that like you shoot a ball and then goes up and the air gets blocked. Like the chaos of a soccer game. Like you've heard that anything can happen. They try to keep trying to put the ball in the net. Or if you'd get the ball taken from you, get it back. Like just be determined to do that and like put effort into it, not just big, oh like bummed, like I lost the ball. Those little things are culturally instilled that. Follow the ball. Like those little things, it's like it's like very easily metaphorical for life and for skiing.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

When life gets you down, get up and keep moving.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

For the team.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

And I suppose, you know, soccer being a team sport as opposed to the skiing that you did, which although you were part of a team, it was very individual, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Skiing.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah. I mean, you were really competing against yourself and others, but how does that uh what does the team dynamic of soccer, how does that sit with you? Is it something you like better than the individual sport?

SPEAKER_00 45:40

I enjoyed the team environment, but I definitely like thrive in the individual sport. For sure, yeah. I mean, I I I maintained accountability with myself. I had to maintain accountability to myself mostly. Um and like it wasn't the fault of anyone else, really. Yeah, I messed up. And I was easier to point fingers in soccer, and that usually didn't help anything, but it like yeah, it's just easier to do that. So that's just a different, different mentality there.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

I would I would love to have continued to play soccer for longer, like in a true team environment. And we did play quite a bit over the years, but it's not organized.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Uh-huh. What's the difference? You know, we were talking before, like, you know, in soccer, you've got 90 minutes, several games in a season. Um, you know, you there's a lot of time to kind of improve the team game, you know, as the soccer match continues. Whereas in the kind of competition you've always done, you know, it's months and months, hours and hours of training for like a minute and a half of competition. Like, how does that sit with you?

SPEAKER_00 46:56

I mean, it's just sort of how it is. It's been how it's been been, but it's like, yeah, it's it'd be nice to be able to have 90 minutes to perfect a run, but it's just full-on uh sprint, essentially, and and you can do a lot. It doesn't feel that short when you're it doesn't because it's something slow down, and your legs get very tired by the end. You're you're just scraping by to get through the finish a lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Really?

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Even yeah, I mean yeah, trying to exert yourself through every turn through the top bottom through the bottom. So it like we were strong enough to do it through the finish, but you're tired gassed.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

No, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

So it's I mean, I thought about city, like yeah, it's it's uh it's cool to trust yourself and be like, yeah, I am strong enough to do that, but you gotta remember that too. It's like, am I really? Because this is you can barely like sometimes see straight and you're so tired and like your legs are just burning.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Yeah, that's the pretty cool part about it. Cool, yeah. Everyone loves that, but for some reason it's I remember the first World Cup race I qualified for second run for was in Ultima Dia Italy. I come down on the first run to the last corner, and you still have 30 to 40 seconds to go.

unknown 48:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

I was like, Are you kidding me? I it's already like a minute, like a 45 seconds in. I'm like, Yeah, you're supposed to ski? I'm supposed to keep skiing right now. I can't barely see where I'm going, and just like just kept lacing arcs, and somehow I stood up and got through. Wow, and continued. Continued and got the next run, and that kind of set the tone. It's like, okay, like this isn't easy. It's not uh it's not gonna be handed to me. Like most racing before that, there's a shorter course because I was younger and the hills were easier. So it's like not a non-issue, really. Right. It's like the World Cup was bulletproof ice, longer courses, harder conditions, and then the pressure of all the stuff around the race is it's just a lot on the body.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

So that was cool to realize that and hope uh you know the young racers out there listening. It's like, yeah, just get strong because you can it it's not always a feel-good moment in a course, but it is still fun to do.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

You've had a really long career thinking about this, you know. You started at two and you've been uh on the global scene since 2009. That's a long time. Four three Olympics, but over 20 years or no, like 16, yeah.

unknown 49:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Like, what has kept you going all this time, Tommy?

SPEAKER_00 49:43

I mean, at some point just got to be that long. I didn't think twice about it. Uh this is the pure joy of skiing. Like, that's as simple as it gets. I mean, surfing's pretty cool. I'm just not nearly as good at it, right? But I'm very good at making turns, and that feels it feels amazing just to be able to use it. It's kind of like flying, and I would imagine. And it feels good to use your body to its full extent.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah. Once you're fully recovered, do you want to go back to skiing? I mean, not necessarily professionally, I don't know. But but would you like def at least recreationally? Of course, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

Yeah. I've climbed a couple volcanoes around here and just doing some backcountry stuff and just going out for a rip too. Yeah. It's always a blast. Um I know some racers like John Claude Keely, a French racer back in the day, he he uh won a bunch of races and then he retired. And it's like I think I don't think he's really skied since.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 50:48

It's like I was so good at it. Why would I ski again? He's it's like, yeah, that's not my mentality.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Nah. You were telling me before that your grandfather skied until he was 90, you said?

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah. Over the hill club. Over the hill, was that was I think so. Patch that's 80 plus. Yeah, he was up there in in about the same position we're in and these chairs. Like must have had legs of steel. Uh he got up there as every year he could. Here, a bachelor? Yeah, bachelor.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Oh wow. That's really the family.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Yeah, that's where a lot of it's happened. My mom grew up in Vermont. Okay. And she would wanted to make sure I said that. Okay. Moved um moved out here with my dad and our family after I was born. I was born out east. It was six months. Okay. Um, they were living in Vermont, and my dad was coaching at Dartmouth for the ski.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

Oh, he was a coach as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Mm-hmm. And they met coaching. He was coached for UVM. Um she also coached soccer the first year, Title IX. It was put into action, and she had never coached soccer, but they won the region. Oh, wow. State or something.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Yes. And so skiing in Vermont, it's a it's a it's got a lot more. There's a lot of culture around skiing and a lot of uh history. It's been around for a long time. Um there's a lot of smaller ski areas all over, and uh one of them is the Cochrane ski area. Um this family that uh the the grandfather, the great-great-grandfather at this point started with his wife, and it's just a rope toe that he had on a tractor.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Oh, how nice.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Then my grandfather got became friends with him, and then um I got my mom and my uncle involved at the ski area there, and they grew up racing and skiing with the Cochrane family there. Oh wow. Then there's there were like three or four siblings of the Cochrans of my parents' generation, and a couple of those racers won gold and bronze and silver or something, like in the Olympics.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Oh, okay. Um there are kids you've grown up with then too.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Then so I've grown up with their kids and their kids have gotten silver in the Olympics, like Ryan, Cochrane, Seagull. This was silver in um in Italy. Oh wow. Super G. And uh um, yeah, that's part of my uh heritage is mom. That's where she fostered, she was yeah, fostered the love of skiing.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

That's beautiful. Does do your parents still ski, I assume?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Yep.

unknown 53:39

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Yeah. Your brother as well?

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Yeah, once in a while. Oh, okay. And gets out. Okay. Um, comes to races and skis and comes out here and skis, goes out to Vermont and skis. Goes to Europe once in a while.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Yeah. Looking back on all these years, Tommy, what is one of your favorite skiing memories? That you just kind of continue to treasure, or maybe continues to be a reason for you to love the sport as you do.

SPEAKER_00 54:09

Well, I was just uh remembering Pat Ropeson who passed just a couple days ago. And he was our coach growing up, one of our coaches. And after seven, we were, I think most of the kids that we grew up with in the MBSCF program had graduated high school and we were starting to go to colleges and doing different things. We kind of so we but we all came back that next winter, or a lot of us. I don't remember who all was there. There's at least four of us skiing, and we ran into Pat, and we all were went out for a couple runs on the backside, and we were just hooting and hollering in the trees and deep powder and sunshine, and it was just like the peak of that period of our lives, yeah, for all of us in a lot of ways. And uh then we all kind of went our own separate ways, and uh those are still chair treasured memories and still close to a lot of those people.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

So rest in peace, fat I didn't realize that he was just a couple days ago he had passed away.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

I'm sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

I'm sorry to hear that. Did he ski for most of his life?

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Yeah, I think I think he grew up in it. Skiing at Buck Hill, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Moved out here and coached for years and years and years, and was became a regional coach and coach, like uh coach for some of the development systems internationally.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Okay. So he was a major player.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah, major player, and touched a lot of people and was uh very he was a jolly giant. He was a big man and just had a great laugh and made sure everyone was having fun and knew how to explain things in a way that kids could understand, that we could all understand there was that's so important. Yeah, huge and made sure we weren't just ski racers learned how to tell us about music and culture. It was fun. There's been a lot of time in with these coaches in the vans traveling from here to like Idaho or Montana. Yeah, there's a lot of off time.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 56:21

Pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Was he probably the most influential coach you had, Tommy?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Oh I mean, there's so many coaches.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

I can imagine in your career so long.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Everyone's had a big impact too in different ways. Ken Tollerdon was the main fist coach at that at that time, uh Nils Erickson, who's coach still here and part running the program there. Um Forrest Carey has been a big influence of mine and coach for for that time I was winning the World Cup, and Ian Garner, those two coaches were around. Um that's cool. Ian was just in town. Uh Eric Homer was a couple years older than me, is a couple years older than me, and he raced. Um, and that kind of set some example of what it is like to be a fast racer coming from Oregon, because it's there's not many from the West Coast. There's not there weren't many racers at the time that were racing at a high level competing on the World Cup.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

And he was from Bend, him and Kevin Francis, and it set they set the tone. And his family, um, Eric Homer's family started the race place and patio world over near around Old Mill. And his his dad passed last year, and he'd been a big influence in the racing industry for decades, and has a The Race Place is a really well-known publication that's is a supplier to the nation.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Tuning tool is it's a pretty special special place here in Bend and you got a lot of culture behind ski racing, and it's like we should keep it alive and keep watching it. Keep yeah, keep supporting ski racing. It it has a big impact on a lot of people's lives.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Yeah. Have you ever thought of wanting to coach yourself later on?

SPEAKER_00 58:12

I will definitely be involved in some fashion. Uh I don't know what that's gonna look like quite yet, but yeah, I spent too much time in this sport to uh to share some of the knowledge and um yeah, it's I love the technical side too. So it's fun to talk about talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

That's cool. Does it happen a lot that in town little like younger skiers will see you and go go up to you and ask you questions, want your picture?

SPEAKER_00 58:42

No, I don't say a lot here and there from time to time. Um at the Athletic Club with Ben the other day. I was in the pool. Yeah, just last summer now. Um with some kid. I could tell some kids were scoping me out there on the side, and like just looking over there. Uh-huh. And then one kid got the courage up and he just comes over and he's like, Are you Tommy Ford? Yes. Uh-huh. And yeah, they asked a couple questions, and and yeah, there's it happens last night. Yeah, the kid asked me, like, so how tight do you buckle your boots? I was like, uh-huh. Not not too tight. It's like I don't my feet actually don't hurt. A lot of people think racers' feet have to hurt. Have to hurt. Yeah. Miners, they fit well. And Scott Homer made sure my boots fit well, and that was, I think, a big part of my life. I have actually good feet. The husky racers have pretty mangled feet.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

You gotta have strong feet to have healthy knees and healthy.

SPEAKER_01 59:36

Yeah, it all starts there, the base. It does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

If they're just cut off and not moving in a boot, it's gonna be hard to be articulate on the microtrain.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

That makes sense, yeah. Um well, Tommy, yeah. Thank you so much for being here. I really loved talking to you and learning about your story. And I can tell there's a lot still to write write. Your story has just begun, I think, in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Yeah, there's there's a lot to discover still, and trying to be open to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

It's an uncomfortable time right now, it's just because it's transition.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Uncertainties sometimes is, but it's like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

It can be exciting too.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Exactly. It's where the possibility exists.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Yeah. And just knowing I've had this drive and purpose for skiing, and then it's kind of like I'm not really pointing towards that anymore. So learning to use those same uh skills and mindset towards this unknown is uh it's just uh not as innate as because that's just the skin's been there. Yeah, you know, so it's gonna be new. It's I'm learning.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Yeah. But the beauty is the skills are in you. It's just a matter of applying it in a different way, right? I mean and w thinking about those skills, like what do you think are the most special skills that your skiing career has given you as a person.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

I mean, it's staying driven towards a a purpose and and how important a purpose is, yeah, and and not knowing what that is is okay. Like skiing has kind like it's been the pretty easy purpose, like an obvious purpose I should say. But it's not it hasn't been my only purpose, and it's not I don't know, I don't know what that is. That's like just keeping that in mind is that it's okay to not know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Being unc being comfortable with the not knowing is something I've really learned and still need to uh cultivate.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:57

Yeah. This what you're saying now reminds me of what you said a little bit ago in the interview when I asked you like what could have made a difference in the successful race you had, and you said you just trusted yourself more. So maybe it's, you know, that invitation to just to trust yourself in this moment, too. Well, I'm sure a lot of wonderful things are coming your way for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Come out of the chrysalis, I guess. It's got to form the chrysalis first, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Tommy. I really appreciate your time for being here.