How to train as an unfunded British visually impaired ski racer

James Luetchford is a severely sight impaired para alpine ski racer, and represents Great Britain internationally. He’s guided by his wife, Alice who skies in front of him and guides him down slalom and Giant Slalom race courses.

Ski race training as a British ski racer is difficult, but particularly when completely unfunded and without a team. This is how we’ve crafted a programme of development that’s currently working well for us.

Physical training

Physical training is incredibly important and critical for injury prevention and recovery. We take our physical training and stretching extremely seriously, and also have to try and build our strength and stamina in order to perform as best as possible on the race course.

Having a regular training regime with consistent check ins with our personal trainer has been gold dust for us. We work with the brilliant Michael Ulloa remotely, who writes up our training regime which we then log in his custom designed app. We log our weight and measurements (occasionally with photographic evidence), and have weekly check ins by phone where we discuss nutrition and our training needs, and the accountability helps keep us on track. It’s also incredibly personalised meaning that we’re actually far more likely to try and do what he tells us to! Michael completely understands that we also have to work two day jobs each to make ends meet, and is realistic and encouraging about what we can achieve in the limited time we have.

We train on the continent once a month

Instead of training for a couple of hours every week in indoor snowdomes in the UK, we’ve found that it’s a better use of our time to travel and train for a week a month during the summer on the European glaciers. Les Deux Alpes and Stelvio are our preferred places, and Les Deux Alpes treats disabled skiers and snowboarders fantastically.

British snowdomes are much smaller and more hectic, which is difficult for visually impaired skiers. Some snowdomes also refuse to close the piste for race training, meaning that you can be skiing your heart down a course, go over a roller and suddenly be confronted by a child lying down in your course. The risks just feel too dangerous for what we’re comfortable with.

In contrast, while they can still be busy, the glaciers are less busy than snowdomes, the courses are longer, the quality of snow is better and the progress we make is greater. Ultimately it’s worth the travel and the expense to get higher quality training opportunities.

We live out of a van

We are incredibly lucky to live out of Louise, our Volkswagen LWB (long wheel base) Crafter. We remortgaged to buy her, and she is absolutely gorgeous. She was custom built for us by Alan Day and custom converted by the fabulous Race Van Conversions. She is 4x4, has diff lock, has heated windscreens, wing mirrors and seats, has a solar panel so we can live off grid, has a loo, kitchen, running water, room for 12 pairs of skis and even space for our cats. She’s phenomenal.

The reason we decided to go for this is because accommodation costs per person per night in Europe can be approximately 100 Euros during the winter. This means that accommodation costs quickly rack up. However, hotels are usually accommodating enough to allow us to park on their car park for a nominal fee, and to use their facilities. Failing that, service stations on the continent nearly always have a shower, and it’s usually much nicer than ours at home in London!

She’s also great when plans change. We’ve been stung before by cancellation charges, but with the van we just drive to better snow or different races. Ferry tickets are cheap to alter and less restrictive than flights. We can take as much luggage as we want, and it feels like we bring our home with us.

Sleeping in your own bed makes a huge difference to the quality of sleep that we get. We’re not too hot, too cold or being disturbed by other hotel visitors. We have our space and can have mental down time to recover energy (we’re both introverts). We know what we’re going to experience and we can choose to eat nicer and healthier food. We’re in control of where we are, what we eat, how we sleep, where we go… the list goes on.

All in all Louise gives us freedom, flexibility and lowers our costs.

We’re flexible

Flexibility is so important if you’re an independent athlete. You don’t have a team to rely on to plan your itinerary, nor to arrange access to training pistes and courses. You don’t have anyone to ask for advice, and everything usually costs more because you don’t have the economy of scale that a team has. Therefore, being flexible with where, when and who we train with is critical. We proactively try to build networks of support and reach out to potential coaches and opportunities. We ask people if they are willing to let us train with them when we see courses set on the mountain. We then build a plan considering the:

• timing of the training available

• location of the training available

• who we’re training with (e.g. how well do we get on with the coach on a personal level)

• the quality of the coaching available

• how it will fit around our day jobs (we both work two jobs to try and fund our ski racing)

• what the snow conditions are like

• whether we can travel on to another block of training or race from the training location

• and unfortunately now - Covid restrictions.

Sometimes the only training available is organised last minute, which is where the van is so helpful. We can pack and jump in it and leave in a couple of hours (although more time to plan and prepare is always nicer!)

We can also be flexible with countries’ ever changing coronavirus restrictions. For example as I’m writing this, Austria has just announced they are locking down again so it’s highly likely the races we were planning to attend will be cancelled there.

Being flexible means we can grab the opportunities when they arise and make the most of the situation we’re in.

We pay for additional support when needed

Occasionally we notice a gap. For example, we need to pay for professional race coaching, and are happy to do so. Occasionally I (Alice) benefit from paying for specialist sports psychological support. There is a fantastic sports psychologist called Kelley Fay, who offers sessions by the hour and is brilliant to touch base with when my mental health is suffering, or to plan in advance how to approach a particular race. We also pay for gym membership and 1Rebel sessions as the value we get out of that is huge.

So is it worth it?

Ultimately ski racing independently is even harder than ski racing with a team, and it’s taken a while to get used to the lack of support. However, the programme we have designed for ourselves is FANTASTIC.

It’s completely tailored around our timetable and our working requirements. We travel to the resorts we like the most and meet our friends on the slopes. We train with our favourite coaches, and train the disciplines we want to train, when we want to train them. We can plan ahead and have complete control over far more areas. Of course we can’t control snow conditions, injuries (much), the weather, but what we can control, we do.

While the lack of funding is a HUGE issue, being independent?

Totally worth it.