Saxton: Moving On

Hey everyone! It’s been quite a while since I last checked in, but it has been a crazy last few weeks. Most recently I’ve been too sick to leave my bed for the past few days but I’m feeling a lot better now. I have been thinking a lot about how this past year has gone, and what my plans would be for the next one and after talking with my parents and coaches I came to a decision about what I’m going to do next year.

You guys know that this past year I was lucky enough to be a part of F.A.S.T. Performance Training run by Bill Pierce. Based out of Seeley Wisconsin, the Men of Seeley Hills (or MOSH as Bill liked to call us) started living together in August and were ready for world domination. There were a few bumps along the way but everyone had a year with some big improvements, and we are all proud of that. However, the ski season has come and gone and MOSH is moving on as well, with everyone deciding to move on, training in different directions.

I have always believed that the most important element to creating a great skiing team is getting lots of fast people together in the same environment. Having great teammates creates an unavoidable environment of excellence, in which every team member reaches new heights, while the team itself shoots past any preconceived ideas of success. I know this is true because my entire career I have trained with people that push everyone hard in training and we all became faster because of it. No year was that truer than this past one, when Jake, Zach and Jan pushed me all fall harder than I had ever worked before and the work paid off in the winter. That’s why it was a little overwhelming when everyone decided to go their own ways, and MOSH, as we had known it ended.

I also knew that I wanted to begin my college education along with my skiing career, but wasn’t sure exactly how. I knew that Dartmouth offered a “D-plan” in which you could customize which terms you attended school, and that in the past skiers had used this to attend school in the spring and summer, while training in the fall and winter. However it isn’t perfect and the spring term creates overlap with the last parts of the racing season, and the summer terms create conflict with training so I was going to need a coach and a program that would be flexible and work with me on my schooling.

I knew that after the successes of this season, I wanted to continue skiing in the same way I had this year as a post graduate athlete. But if F.A.S.T. had ended, where would I go? And how could I fit school into the picture? I knew that there was one place, where I would get pushed further than ever before. Where I would train every day with multiple Olympians and live the life of a skier. That’s why I decided that this next year I’m going to join the Stratton Mountain School’s postgraduate program and train and live with their Elite team athletes while being coached by Gus Kaeding. I’ll be moving out to Vermont where I will be living this summer, fall, and during the winter when we aren’t traveling. I am pretty good friends with some of the guys on the team, so I know that they’re unafraid of hard work, and have a first class training and living atmosphere and I’m super psyched to be a part of it and add whatever I can to the team. One of the more crucial parts of this decision was the ability SMS gave me to be flexible with my schooling, and because of that I am able to begin spring term at Dartmouth in 2014.

I am sad to be leaving the Midwest, because this is the community that reared me as a skier. But even though I’ll be living in Vermont, I will always be a Midwesterner. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to continue skiing and training as well as working towards my college degree. I’m super excited for the new season, and another chance to keep chasing the dream!

About the author... Minnesota State high school champion Ben Saxton, along with fellow Minnesotans Jan Ketterson, Zach Goldberg, and Jake Brown have delayed entry into college in order to chase their dreams of being the best Nordic Ski racers in the country. They are living in the northwoods near Hayward, training under the guidance of Bill Pierce, FAST Performance Training. Ben Saxton will be sharing his experiences this season as he trains and races across the country and hopefully the world. Additional: Zach Goldberg's blog