THANK YOU FOR VISITING SWEATSCIENCE.COM!
As of September 2017, new Sweat Science columns are being published at www.outsideonline.com/sweatscience. Check out my bestselling new book on the science of endurance, ENDURE: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, published in February 2018 with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell.
- Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience)
***
From a nice, detail-packed two-part post at Wired’s Playbook blog about how Matthew Schiller, the head technician for the U.S. Ski Team, prepares ski bases and edges for downhill competition, a lovely kicker that sums up the technological arms race:
After all this work, the endless coats of wax, the scraping and filing and polishing — what’s the difference between a perfect ski and one that’s totally missed the mark?
About half a second, according to Schiller.
Months and years of work to find a half a second? That’s the Olympics, and not just for the athletes.