A Day in Saas-Fee With Snowboarder Kalle Koblet

KELLER and I have a lot in common. Not only are we both anchored in Winterthur, but we also strive for international precision and deliver our best performances under pressure. I look forward to working with KELLER and to many joint successes.

Today I will show you what a typical training day in the life of a snowboard pro looks like.

0600 Wake-up call
The alarm clock wakes me up. I get up and make my favourite breakfast: protein porridge with a banana and a little honey. With that I also drink a lemon and ginger tea. After breakfast I prepare my joints and muscles for the day with a short warmup session.

It is time to get moving and the morning walk to Saas-Fee cable car lift begins. Despite the early hour, the station is already full. My team-mates and I squeeze into the cabins with other athletes and those who would like to become one. Less than an hour later, we find ourselves 2’000 meters above the village on the glacier (or what is left of it). 
 

0830 Start of training
We assemble our equipment at the mountain station drive of our training route. Here I do another warmup and get an idea of today's conditions. Today's training is organised like a competition. We start with training runs, followed by timed runs and we finish with races. We keep swapping starting positions and opponents. Our coaches give us individual feedback and we have the chance to work on our weaknesses. This is done, for example, via video analyses at the start or with radio messages from the coaches further down the track.

1200 End of training
The snow is getting sludgy and energy is dwindling. It is time for us to return to the valley. One metro and two gondola rides later, lunch awaits us in a restaurant in Saas-Fee. Today we are having vegetable soup and risotto. After a 20-minute walk through the village, we return to our accommodation and dry our equipment. We ready the snowboards for our service man, who will prepare them for tomorrow. Finally, nap time! 

1600 It's Gym Time
The afternoon nap was important. Well rested, I visit CrossFit Saas-Fee with some teammates for another training session. We all train individually according to the plans received from our fitness coaches. After a good hour, I'm done with my fitness programme. 

I quickly make my way back to the holiday flats and realise that the wind is perfect for a short evening flight with the paraglider. But I must still climb a good 500 metres and land back on the meadow next to our house before it gets dark. While I set up my paraglider, I talk to my service man Lorenzo about some changes that we want to make to the equipment before my first race. 

Before I go paragliding, we watch the days videos in the trainer's accommodation and I collect my feedback. I write everything down in my training diary: the morning runs, my afternoon gym training, the feedback received from the coaches and things I want to implement the next day. With that I finish my working day and am ready for to go paragliding. 

1900 Food and board game
I do not have to cook today as we take turns. Two people from each flat cook for the rest. Today we are having a curry with rice and because I did not cook, I do the washing up. In a flat-sharing community of nine sportsmen, the dishes pile up meters high in the kitchen. After eating, we round off the evening with a competitive round of the board game called Brändi Dog.

At the end of the day, I'm glad to climb into bed, but am already looking forward to the next training day. We usually spend four to five days in Saas-Fee and return home for the weekend.