Sean Hartel

Hello everyone, Welcome to the Team Fuel Blog! I'm really excited to be a part of this and to have the opportunity to represent Twinlab in the snow sports industry. As a professional freestyle skier, my body is the most important piece of equipment I own and Twinlab products give me the ability to keep it fine-tuned and give me a competitive edge. In this blog you can read up on the products I use, my travel experiences, how I train and prepare for competition, and hopefully a few entertaining stories from the road.

First, I'd like to explain what it is I do and why I do it...
I have more fun skiing than anything else in life. It's always been that way. But now it's my job too, which is a pretty recent thing. And before this I had other career aspirations that I took very seriously. And as with that, I give it everything I have, because I want to be the best at whatever it is I do. I'm ridiculously competitive and I really like to win. So for a little under a year now, I've been training hard and making alot of sacrifices in the rest of my life. My job pretty much consumes my life now. I have business trips all the time to these boring places like Aspen and New Zealand. Most days I'm on the hill from 8am to 4pm, and again then from 5pm to 9pm practicing under the lights. Basically, I work doubles 7 days a week. Aren't you jealous?

I have several sponsors, but Twinlab is one of my biggest supporters. My job is to travel around and represent these companies in two ways: competitions and media exposure. I compete in FIS events, which award you cumulative points to earn rankings on World Cup and eventually qualify you for the Olympics, and I compete in Pro events, like the US Open, where you win money and fame. As far as media goes, I film throughout the season with different production companies to be featured in their ski movies. I also have a photographer that I travel around with, Ben Meester, and take pictures for magazines, posters, and advertising for sponsors. I have incentives for photos and competitions so my livelihood depends on the exposure I receive and my competition rankings. My job is a ton of fun, but there is also alot of pressure and stress.

There are a few different types of skiing that I specialize in as a freestyler: superpipe, slopestyle, moguls, and big mountain/backcountry freestyle... Superpipe and Slopestyle are the two main events that I compete in. Slopestyle is an event where your score is a result of a full run, which consists of different types of jumps and rails that you have to grind (like a skateboarder). Both of these events are very entertaining and can get pretty gruesome, and they require tons of training. My favorite part of skiing is backcountry, where a skier can really get creative. Backcountry skiing is what happens off piste and away from the resorts, and it takes more knowledge and experience than skill because you're battling nature rather than other skiers. I've spent hours upon hours in the classroom learning about winter meteorology, the science of snowpack, avalanche awareness, and search and rescue. Once you know your stuff you can head out into the backcountry where you strap your skins or snowshoes to your feet, your avalanche beacon to your chest, and your shovel and probe on your back, just before you get yourself to the top (rather than a chairlift). Then you can swim through untouched powder on your skis and jump off giant cliffs into soft pillowy landings. AAAAHHH, my daydream.

Wow, I really am day dreaming because I'm stuck on the couch this week and it just snowed 4 feet here! The other day I crashed pretty bad on a big jump and my edge cut me up. I got a pretty big laceration on my knee and elbow, with lots of stitches. It's a pretty risky sport so injuries are part of the game. I'm lucky it's just a flesh wound because I'll be back on the hill in a few more days to compete. I fly to NY on Thursday for a competition at Hunter Mountain over the weekend. It's called the Latitude 42 Degrees North Air Assault, in case any of you east coasters want to come watch. Then I fly back to California on Tuesday to get the stitches taken out. Wahoooo! Well it's time for me to get back on the stationary bike.... Gotta be ready for this weekend!