Hey BSF Fans,
This is Max Kluck checking in from my apartment in Salt Lake. For those who don’t know, I am currently attending, and skiing in the NCAA circuit for the University of Utah, alongside my position on the BSF Pro Team. With school having started about a month ago now, I wanted to give some insights into what it’s like balancing school and skiing as a student athlete.
This year I’m going into my fourth season as a Ute, and over the past three years I have learned a few things about being a student athlete, and attempting to balance skiing and Mechanical Engineering. Below is my typical day in the life!
6:30 - Wakeup and Breakfast
Almost every morning starts off around this time for me, as I find it very important to leave enough time before training to eat a good breakfast, and get things packed. My typical breakfast on training mornings is either oats, or some bread with jam. This is quick, easy, and fuels me for training.
7:30 - Morning Training
After a quick ride up though campus, I find myself at the ski building at this time to meet for team training. We are very lucky with the location of our campus as we have many rollerski options, running trails, road bike routes, and mountain bike trails directly from campus. In fall we can start many sessions here, but sometimes for certains spots, or to ski in winter we will climb into vans here and drive somewhere to train.
10:15 - Class
With classes the afternoons get more complicated as everyday and semester is different. This semester I was quite unlucky and ended up with 10:45 class every day. With training team training often ending around 10-10:30, this often gets tight. Luckily we just got new showers at our ski building, so I'm able to clean up before class.
12:00 - Lunch and Rest
Around this time I usually get back to my apartment after the first session and class. Here I will take a shower, and try to get some food down quickly. I will usually have leftovers from last night’s dinner, which makes the ideal easy lunch. Then most days I will fire up my espresso machine, and make myself a little cappuccino treat. Which is of course one of the highlights of my day!
This is usually followed by some rest, or some homework.
3:00 - Afternoon Training
With some afternoon rest at home, this is usually the time for an afternoon training session. It depends on the week, but most days for me consist of a morning session, which is usually fairly specific training and on skis or rollerskis, and an afternoon session, which can be anything from second intervals, to lift, to an easy endurance session often on the bike. Apart from lifting once per week these sessions are on our own, and a good chance to enjoy the area around campus and clear my mind.
5:00- Dinner
Following my second session its finally dinner time. This sometimes consists of getting dinner as a team at the Athlete Dining Hall on campus, but usually I just end up cooking at home. Most often I cook some Pasta dish, but when I have more time I have made some nice Lamb tikki masala, or even Käse Spätzle with my German roommate.
7:30- Homework
Now that dinner is over, and I am settled in for the night it is almost always homework time. Throughout the day between classes, and training I often end up doing very little homework. So although I would rather not the evenings end up being my most productive times. For example I am writing this blog in this time slot!
10:00- Bedtime
Finally it's bed time. Usually by this point I am hopefully done with whatever I needed to get done for the day, so I finally get to call it a day. Depending on the day this can be a bit earlier or later, but usually this is an ideal time to get a good sleep before repeating this all again.
As you can see, the average day as a student athlete can be very busy. This schedule obviously only includes the basics of the day, and in all honesty the less fun parts. Many days will have other activities such as social activities with the team, which only add to the busyness, but are what makes college skiing so fun!
Hope this provided a fun insight into the life of a student athlete.
