Winter Vinecki's Best Mental Tool Is Her Track Record. Yours Is Too.

When Winter Vinecki says she's done hard things before, she means it.

She's the youngest person to run seven marathons on seven continents in history. She moved to Park City alone at 13 to train a sport she'd discovered ten months earlier. She’s made a full comeback from a fractured face requiring titanium plates. She has a resume stacked with two Olympic appearances and five World Cup wins in one of the most dangerous disciplines in winter sport.

So when you hear that she's three weeks out of a disc replacement in her neck (a surgery no one in her sport has ever come back from) and she says this:

"I know I've done hard things before. I've been able to come back. And so this is just another one of those things where I take baby steps, day by day, and work through it."

It’s worth taking note of. She’s consulting her own track record.

Her Guinness World Record

Vinecki’s father passed away when she was 10. At the time, she had already started her non-profit, Team Winter. But when he passed away, her goals got bigger. She set her sights on earning the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to run a marathon on all seven continents.

"I didn't know if I’d actually be able to do it…travel to Antarctica, like… I was from a small town in Gaylord, Michigan. I didn't think I’d actually be able to travel to every corner of the world. But my mom is the most driven go-getter person I've ever met. When she wants something done, or when one of her kids has a goal, she'll do whatever it takes to make it happen."

Her mom ran all seven races right alongside her. In the process, they simultaneously became the first mother-daughter duo to ever complete a marathon on all seven continents. The hardest part, she says, wasn't the races.

"It was actually hardest to get into the races. Because I was so young, most races had age limits. The ones we ended up doing were some of the toughest in the world, purely because those were the race directors who would allow me to participate."

In South America, that meant the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

"Looking back, I don't know how I did it. That race goes up to 14,000 feet over Dead Woman's Pass. You're basically hiking stone steps the entire time, up and down the mountains of Peru. My mom originally saw it and said, no, we're not doing that one. Honestly, not because she was worried about me finishing, but because she was doing it herself and wasn't sure she'd make it."

They did it anyway.

The Sport That Found Her

She was twelve when an Olympic aerial skier, Emily Cook, connected with her at a Women's Sports Foundation event and said: You're pretty tiny to be a ski racer. Why don't you come try aerials?

In classic Winter fashion, she accepted the challenge despite having no acrobatic background.

"I came out and gave it everything I had. I landed on my face, my back, my stomach, every way except my feet trying to learn my first backflip. But, eventually I got it. And it was the most amazing feeling. I told my mom, sell my downhill skis. I want to move to Park City and do aerials."

She moved to Park City, alone, at 13 to live with a host family. Her (super!) mom, was a physician in Oregon with three other kids at home and couldn't uproot everyone.

"I want to move to Park City and do aerials" became two Olympic Games, five World Cup wins, and a ranking of second in the world.

Navigating Fear

Aerial skiing is not a sport that lets you forget it is dangerous.

You takeoff at 45 miles per hour, fly 50 feet into the air, and have three seconds to complete multiple rotations and land clean on snow. Winter competes a triple twisting triple backflip.

In 2017, training on the water ramp (the supposedly safer step before snow) Winter landed slightly sideways. The force of the impact on water slammed her fist directly into her face.

"I literally punched myself in the face, knocked myself out, fractured the whole right side, and had to have titanium plates put in. So now on snow, if you ever see videos of me, I wear a custom-made mask that protects those plates."

She embraces the fear. It’s present in every jump.

"Fear is absolutely a massive part of our sport. There are still times where it's very scary. That's part of the sport, and honestly part of why I do it — but also part of why sometimes I wake up and think, I don't know if I want to go do this today."

What she has built, over years, is a practice for moving forward anyway. Her mental training includes breathwork at the top of the hill before every jump, visualization (on the couch, making dinner, while grocery shopping), and working with a sports psychologist.

"Overcoming fear is a skill like anything else. The more you practice it, the better you get. Even if you haven't done a specific jump that many times, you’ve overcome the same fear on other jumps hundreds of times before. That gives you the belief that, even though you’re scared, you’re going to hop, turn my skis, and just do it."

Her teammate Kyra Dossa told me that when she feels fear at the top of the jump, she asks herself one question: What would Winter do?

Now you know.

Lessons from Livigno

At the 2026 Games, ten women competed triple backflips, Winter included. It was the most competitive event in the history of aerials.

She finished sixth after missing her last landing.

"You have one jump, three seconds of air time, for years and years of training. You do everything you can so that when you're in the moment, you can at least know: I did everything possible to be ready for this."

It was heartbreaking. But she’ll tell you: that’s sport.

When asked further about her self-belief, she pushed back on the concept entirely.

"I don't know if I'd characterize it as purely self-belief in the traditional sense. There's definitely some innate belief in myself and my goals, but a lot of it really comes down to just trying every single day. When I set these goals, I may not deep down 100% believe 'I've got this'. In fact, I kind of trick myself. I think: if that person can do it, I can do it. And then: what can I do today to take the next step toward that goal?"

And then:

"I lost my dad when I was just 10 years old. He was only 40 when he passed away. Seeing how fragile and short life can be, I really just want to take advantage of every opportunity I have."

Building Your Track Record

Winter's confidence stems from the track record she's been building her entire life

Every hard thing she's done has become evidence for the next one. The seven marathons made moving to Park City alone at 13 feel possible. Getting through the face fracture made the comeback from the ACL feel possible. All of it (every baby step, every continent, every first jump on snow) has built her track record to lean on when the next “impossible” thing arrives.

Recovery from neck surgery is her next challenge. But she has never faced a hard thing without eventually getting through it.

The question worth sitting with: what's in your track record? Because you have one too: moments where you did the hard thing, got through it, came out stronger on the other side. When the next challenge feels too big, do what Winter does: don't look forward first. Look back. Your past is full of proof that you're stronger than you think.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

I'm Amy Wotovich, and I'm on a mission to personally interview 100% of the 2026 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Team. How do elite athletes train their mindset, overcome failure, sustain dominance, and compete with confidence? Winter Vinecki is one of 304 athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey @backtheteam to level up your mindset alongside the world’s best.