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I’ve once again gotten a little bit behind on blogging about my biathlon adventures.

So I’ll try to do a quick catch-up.  (oops, it turned into a long catch-up)

After World Champs I went to Inzell, Germany for the off week before the next World Cup.  Inzell is in southern Germany, near the Ruhpolding biathlon venue, and its a nice little Bavarian town in the foothills of the Alps. I didn’t get the sunshine that I was hoping for in Inzell, but we did get lots of fluffy new snow, hearty Bavarian food, and lots of time to relax.  We skied on the trails that connected the little villages around the valley, and made use of the sauna and hot tub on a daily basis.  I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve such a nice Bavarian vacation!

A cool cow that I visited on one of my skis around Inzell.

The nice little cabin that we stayed at in Inzell.

But after that interlude it was back to “business” as I travelled to Oslo, Norway along with the rest of the Biathlon Circus.  In Oslo, all of the athletes from all of the countries stayed at the same big fancy hotel up on top of the Holmenkollen Hill, only a short walk away from the venue.  I once again felt extremely spoiled.  From our hotel we could look out on the entire city of Oslo and the fjord beyond.  The food was delicious and came in huge quantities at an enormous smorgasbord buffet.   I ate smoked salmon at almost every meal and enjoyed all of the fresh vegetables–a food group that both Czech and Bavarian cuisines shy away from.  Meals were crowded, social, and entertaining with all of the world cup biathletes in one dining hall.

The Holmenkollen ski jump is quite pretty–sort of like a sculpture. I climbed to the top of it one night, and got a nice view of the city.

The Holmenkollen biathlon venue was perfectly groomed and very fancy, and we got very lucky to have beautiful sunny weather for the entire week.  Who could ask for more!!  But I had to stay focused–I had a race to race.  And I was hoping that I would have more than one race to race–this was my last world cup of the year, and I wanted to be in the top-60 of the sprint so that I could qualify for the pursuit.  After my easy week in Inzell I was feeling rested and ready to go, and I liked the course.  And since I tend to be a solar-charged sort of person, the sunny weather was a good sign for me also.  I was psyched.

In the race I felt good skiing, and I felt like I was getting closer to my real race-gear than I’d been all year.  But on the range things weren’t so great.  I had two misses in prone, and then two more in standing.  I knew that with that shooting it would be very hard for me to make the pursuit.  On the last lap I was getting splits that I was only 10 seconds out of the top-60, and I dug deep and went as hard as I could.  I left it all out there, and when I crossed the finish line I was in 56th place, but I knew that there were still good racers coming in behind me.  And in the end I was in 61st place, only 0.4 seconds away from reaching my goal of qualifying for the pursuit.  I was bummed, but also happy with how I had skied.  It left me knowing that I could do better next year.  For the next few days, I enjoyed cheering on my teammates and going for long skis around the vast Holmenkollen trail network.  Then I said bye to my new biathlon team family–teammates, wax techs, and coaches–and I headed off on my next adventure.

source: Michal van Balkum

Norwegian fans lined the course and filled the stadium.

I’d decided that after the Oslo world cup, I should take advantage of being in Europe and do something that I’d always wanted to do:  race one of the big European ski marathons.  It was perfect timing because the Engadin, the world’s largest skate marathon, was the following weekend in Switzerland and Nils was already planning on going.  We were a part of a group of Americans doing the race with the help of Tony Wiederkehr, a skiing supporter and an avid Engadin-racer himself.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was psyched to be continuing my European racing adventure.  Throughout the week we scoped out the 42-k race course and entertained ourselves by people-watching and window-shopping in ritzy St. Moritz.   On the friday night before the race I competed in an exposition night sprint race in the streets of St. Moritz Bad, and I surprised myself by taking 4th and winning enough Swiss francs to bring my trip budget out of the red.  “Sweet!” I thought, bring on this marathon!

source: swiss-image.ch/Remy Steinegger

But the marathon turned out to be a whole new sort of adventure.  It was sort of like the Birkie, but on steroids, and in a beautiful place with mountains and bright sunshine.  Also the course was flatter and narrower, and there was no separate wave for elite women.  I had been seeded into the “elite A” wave–which, as it turns out, wasn’t really an elite wave at all.  Along with 1,000 others–almost all of them men–I started at the same time but 10 meters behind the real “elite” wave.  Then another 10 meters behind us was the “elite B” wave–another thousand strong.  I had tried to put my skis down early to hold a spot for myself, but then 15 minutes before the start, I couldn’t find them.  Finally I found them but by that time I had no choice but to set them up at the back of the pack.  I looked around for some other women to join, but couldn’t find any.  The start of the race could have been from a battle scene of some epic “cast of thousands” movie set on a frozen lake in a beautiful Swiss valley.  It was an awesome feeling to be in the midst of such a mass of moving, fighting, clashing, skiing humanity.  Only a few meters past the line, I got tripped, and then run over by the elite b wave as I tried to get up.  But my adrenal system kicked in, and soon I was back up and fighting my way along and through like everyone else.  My poles kept getting kicked and stepped on and I remember thinking that I was lucky they hadn’t broken yet, and I was glad that I’d taped the bottom foot or so of them to help protect them. And then my pole broke.  So then I skied with a very short pole for a while.  At this point I resigned myself to being nowhere near the top women, and decided that I should just enjoy the craziness of it all.

source: REUTERS/Michael Buholzer

But I couldn’t just give up, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed about the broken pole.  After a few k I got a spare pole from the race service people, but then I immediately regretted it–the pole was 6 inches too long and felt so heavy and awkward compared to my light racing pole.  But eventually I got used to it and I ended up skiing over half of the race with it.  I spent the rest of the race trying to move my way up, while also trying to just have fun and not care about how I was doing–but these were sort of conflicting interests.  Passing was difficult and often frustrating.  The Engadin course has many narrow pinchpoints and the pace would slow to a walk as the huge pack hit the few uphills along the way.  Also, my mostly-male compatriots were taking the race very seriously and did not appreciate getting passed by anyone, let alone a girl.  But I managed to move up some, and also to enjoy myself, and the second half of the race was much less frantic–I got my very own spare pole from Clarke, our wax tech extraordinaire, and the pack spread out a little bit.  I crossed the finish line in a stream of other finishers.  What an experience!

Afterwards I enjoyed sitting in the sun, drinking a beer and watching while thousands of people finished–some of them wearing sombreros or fat-suits, or where’s-waldo costumes.  It was an awesome ski race!

I just finished competing in my first-ever world champs in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.  Susan wrote a great blog with a lot of good pictures, but I figured I should add a few more of my own! I really wish that there were a better way to capture or describe the feeling of being in a stadium filled with 20,000 screaming fans, bright blinding lights, and huge jumbo-tron TV screens, as you try to get in your zone and do your final warming up before a race. Its exhilarating!!  I tried taking a few videos from the start pen to give you all a sense of what its like. Here’s a link to the best one, which is of the start of the men’s relay.

Here I am with the mascot monster of Nove Mesto at the opening ceremonies for the biathlon World Champs.  I got to shoot at a fake laser target when our team got introduced and walked through the stadium.

Here I am with a German biathlon fan, who apparently comes to almost all of the world cups.  There are many die-hard fans like this in crazy outfits, though “santa-claus” definitely stands out as one of the real characters.

My sister took this screen shot from the live online footage of the sprint race.  I cleaned my prone shooting, so I came in to standing in a pretty good position.  But then I missed 3 standing shots, which was too many misses!  I was 71st and didn’t qualify for the pursuit.

In the 15k individual, I had my best world-cup race yet with a 56th-place finish.  Though I was pretty happy with my results and also happy just to be there, racing in World Champs has just made me hungrier to race even more and get better.  It was also incredible to be there when Tim won a silver medal in the individual.  The team has such a hardworking and great group of coaches and wax techs, and to see how happy and proud they all were and to be a part of the celebrating was an awesome experience that really made me want to be a part of more future success.

One day Sara and I ran up to this really cool old church that was up on a hill in Zdar nad Sazavou, the town where we were staying.  It was built in the 7th century and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The detailing on it was beautiful!

There was another type of beautiful art to be found along the path that I went for a short run on most mornings–beautiful graffiti all over many of the old concrete buildings and storage containers.  It made me want to try graffiti art, and added color to an otherwise very gray city-scape.

 Now the team is resting and training in Inzell, Germany for a week before we head to Oslo for another weekend of world cup races.  I’m excited to get another chance to try to put all the pieces together and have a good biathlon race!

I meant to write about my first world cup right away when I was still really overwhelmed with the excitement of it.  But then I didn’t, and now its been about a week.  But it was exciting enough that I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting re-excited about it as I write!

So I left off my last blog after I’d arrived in Antholz, and decided that I was in heaven.

For the next few days, I trained on the world cup course that was a few minutes walk from the hotel, ate lots of delicious food, and watched in amazement as tourists arrived for the races.  Even on training days, people would line parts of the course with their drinks in hand and cheer as we skied by.  They were practicing for the races too!  As we walked back to our hotel after skiing, people would stop us and ask for autographs or photos. I signed my “autograph” on lots of german flags, some guy’s jacket, picture-books of biathlon, programs from the races…you name it!  I learned that if I was in a rush to get somewhere, I should just avert my eyes and keep walking–if you stop to give one autograph, or take a picture with someone, then usually others come up too.  It was hilarious! I wanted to tell them that I wasn’t a famous biathlete, that in fact this was my first world cup ever, but I’m not sure they even would have cared.  I told a few people it was my first world cup, and that just made them get more excited for me.

It stayed clouded in and snowy until the morning of the first race.  Then suddenly the clouds cleared, the sun shone bright on huge sparkling white mountains all around, and the place was mobbed with people.  It was seriously overwhelming!  But I did my best to stay focused–I had to get my bib and leg numbers on, get my rifle checked, zero, warm up, get my skis checked and my timing chips put on, and get to the start on time.  It was just like a normal biathlon race, right?  Except when I went up to the start pen, on one side there were hundreds and hundreds of noisy fans in the stadium seats and on the other side there was a huge jumbotron TV screen showing the live footage of the race.  I started watching the TV, and it was just like watching the race on TV anywhere in Europe…except that it was here…and I could watch in real life.  Except that I couldn’t really watch because I was racing!  I started 86th out of about 100 people, and by the time I started all of the top-ranked women had already finished.

Its exhilarating to race along a course lined with people like this!

For the first lap of the 3-lap sprint race, I was so exhilarated I couldn’t really tell if I was going slow or fast.  I was trying to go out slow–I didn’t want to start too fast, especially at altitude.  I came in the the range feeling pretty good, and before I knew it, I had hit all of my prone targets!  I flew around the next lap feeling pretty pumped–I’d cleaned a stage in my first-ever world cup!  I told myself that I was going to take my time on the standing shooting, not rush, and try to hit the targets.  But once again the standing shooting happened before I really had time to think, but this time the results were not good–I missed 4 out of 5, which is pretty miserable shooting.  I had to ski 4 penalty loops, and then motivate for the final lap.  On this lap I tried to just enjoy being out there in front of so many people, in such a beautiful place.  I got a split that I was in 72nd–well out of qualifying for the pursuit–but at least I could try to have fun.

I ended up 81st on the day–not a great result.  I’d been in 30th after prone, and then the 4 misses in standing had really been a setback.  And I hadn’t skied as fast as I knew I could either.  I wanted to do better next time, and I wished I could have re-done the standing stage.  But on the whole, I was just pumped!

Craftsbury biathletes in Europe!  Susan and I in the stadium after the relay.

I didn’t get to race the pursuit, but I did get to race in the relay a few days later, and I was anchor.  Despite some not-so-great shooting, we ended up 10th, which was the best US women’s relay result in a few years.  I had fun skiing with girls from the other teams, and shooting with them head-to-head, and I was very relieved to not get any penalty loops, though I did use 5 spare bullets to hit all my targets.  But once again, it left me wanting to do better!

After our relay we got to relax and cheer on the men and really take in the scene.   I wish I had pictures of all of the spectators in crazy outfits, but there were just too many of them and I got overwhelmed.  But here are a few more photos!

There were fans everywhere watching the races–including on any roof they could get on!

As athletes, we had credentials that let us go on the course to cheer. This was a popular place to watch the races, since there was a jumbotron nearby, and as we walked up the edge of the course to cheer on the men, fans would shove beers at us, or pens and things they wanted us to sign.

Annelies and I out cheering with some some of the Canadian women during the men’s relay.

After the relay, I poked my head in the party “tent” (more like a temporary building) to check out the scene–lots of people and lots of beer!

A view on the way up Staller Pass. The ski trail also doubles as a sledding trail, and lots of tourists hike up and sled all the way back down.

Its a beautiful 360 degree view from the top of the pass, which is also the border between Italy and Austria. And there are ski trails up there that are groomed to perfection! One day I skied up as the sun was setting, and then skied around on top of the world as the light faded, and then skied down in the dusk.

Now we’re training here in Antholz for a few weeks, before we head to Nove Mesto, Czech Republic for the World Championships!   I’m feeling very spoiled and lucky to be able to spend time in such a nice place, and I’m excited to try to improve upon my performances at World Champs!

For the past two weeks, I’ve been in Europe racing in IBU cups (the international biathlon circuit thats below the world cup level) and doing what I like to call “riding the biathlon rollercoaster.”   First was IBU cup 4 in Otepaa, Estonia.  Along with being my first international biathlon races this year, these races were also a “trials” for moving up to the world cup, though I was trying my best not to think about that and just race.  International biathlon races are so different from racing in the U.S., where there are usually about 5 competitors in each age group and its always the same people.  Even on the IBU cup there are teams from about 20 different countries, the range is packed full of biathletes and coaches, and you suddenly get the feeling that you’re competing in an actual popular sport.  Everything is super organized and official.  Its always a little bit of a shock, but in a good way–it makes you feel energized, and you feel like you fit in skiing around in your USA adidas stuff–most of the other teams have Adidas too.

We had a team time trial two days before the first race, and I didn’t shoot that well, but I was happy with my ski time–it was a good confidence-booster before the IBU-cup race, at least as far as skiing went.  The first IBU cup race was an individual-format race.  That means that it was 5 loops of 3k, and each miss in shooting meant a 1-minute time penalty.  The individual race is an especially good one to shoot well in.  But it was really windy, which makes shooting tough, especially standing shooting.  I hit every prone target, but managed to miss 7 between my two standing stages–which meant that 7 minutes got automatically added to my time, and I ended up 23rd.  I’d been the second American in both of those races, which meant that if I wanted to go to the world cup, I needed to have a really good one in the last race in Estonia.  It was a sprint race, so only two shootings, and I missed 3 in prone and 2 in standing–50% is not a good shooting percentage.  So I was already bummed as I was walking out of the finish area when an IBU official came up to me and said “Do you know what you did?”   Thats not something you want to hear from an IBU official.  It turned out that I had cross-fired–shot on the wrong targets.  That meant that technically I hadn’t hit any of my targets in standing and since I had only done 2 penalty loops, I would be penalized 2 minutes for each of the three penalty loops that I hadn’t done.  With 6 minutes added to my time, my already mediocre result was now downright abysmal.  The rollercoaster was at a new low point.  I would not be going to the world cup.

But I was not done my IBU cup racing yet.  The next stop was Ostrov, Russia.  At 7:00 am the day after the race, we piled into a big tour bus along with the Austrian, Korean, Kazakhstan, and Brasilian teams and started the drive over into Russia.   Theoretically, Ostrov was only a 3.5-4 hour drive from Otepaa.  

The adventure was just beginning.

First of all, just getting in to Russia is interesting.  We were told to expect about 40 minutes of waiting at the border.  After at least an hour of waiting and then getting our passports checked, we found out that we had just cleared the checkpoint to leave Estonia–a bit further up the road was the Russian customs station.  Right.  All in all it took 3 hours, and lots of help from some russian interpreters who were sent to meet us by the hosts, before we’d gotten ourselves and our rifles into Russia.  The rifles were then promptly whisked away to be locked up–for the rest of our stay in Russia, they would be locked up, and we could check them out for training and races only, and then they were to be checked back in right after.

The crazy Russian border fox–it came up to the bus while we were waiting at the border, and even came partway up the stairs.

 Driving through the Russian countryside and towns was eye-opening for me.  I sort of felt like I’d gone back in time.  In the country most of the houses are very old and weathered-looking, usually made of wood.  Many of them have beautiful intricate wooden trim or are painted in bold interesting colors.  They are surrounded by gardens, woodpiles, orchards, old barns and sheds.  But then as when you pass through towns, you get a sense of how most of the population lives; in large, soviet-era, crumbling concrete apartment buildings.  Rows and rows of them that look nearly identical. Apart from a few concrete factory buildings and things, there was very little sign of an economy–stores and things were few, small and hard to pick out.  I have to admit it looked pretty bleak.  

The next surprise was when we stopped at the venue, only to be told that our hotel was another hour away.  While  most of the other teams were in the same boat, this was not an ideal situation.  We would spend at least 2 hours every day on the bus–usually more, since there was usually waiting at either end of the trip.

Typical housing in Pushkinskie Gorie, the town where we were staying

One of our translators helped me explain to the kitchen staff that I couldn’t eat gluten, which helped out the food situation a lot…but the food was still my biggest struggle in Russia.  There were very few vegetables.  I ate lots of white rice pudding-porridge with margarine in it for breakfast.  That was usually pretty much all I raced on.  But I learned that I could race on an empty, grumbling-with-hunger stomach–that was a good thing to learn.  By the end of the trip, I was in a calorie deficit and couldn’t sleep very well because I kept waking up hungry.

A typical breakfast–hotdogs, instant potatoes, cole slaw, one cucumber slice and one tomato slice.

The venue had never hosted a big IBU biathlon race before, and they put in so much effort to make the event happen.  The trails and range were quite new and really nice, and there were hundreds of volunteers all over the course and everywhere.  There was an opening ceremonies compete with lots of russia singing and dancing and other performances.

A singing/dancing routine that was part of the opening ceremony show that they put on.

The course was wide, flowing, and beautiful.

Right from the start, I had good races in Russia.  The first race was a mixed relay, and I was scrambling.  I was excited to get to really ski head-to-head with the other girls, and I found that I could ski with them!  I cleaned prone, and left the range in 3rd, behind a German and a Norwegian.  I skied that next lap with them, and was surprised to learn that I could keep up.  I just tried to relax as much as possible and have good technique.  When I came in to standing, I accidentally stopped at the wrong point and the officials yelled at me to move down.  So I lost a bit of time, and it also got me sort of worked up.  I was feeling shaky in standing, and I missed 3–which meant that I had to hit all three of my relay rounds to avoid the penalty loop.  As I started hand-loading the first relay round, my right leg started to shake uncontrollably.  I have no idea how it happened, but I managed to hit all three of my spare rounds despite the shaking leg.  I’d lost a few places, but all I felt was relief!  Our team ended up 7th–not a bad result for us!

Next was a sprint race, and had 1 miss in prone and 2 in standing–not the best shooting.  But I felt really good skiing and  ended up in 18th.  That meant that I got to start the pursuit (the last race) in 18th, right in the mix.  I was psyched!  I couldn’t sleep much the night before the race from a combination of hunger and excitement.  Pursuits are fun races (especially if you shoot well) because you’re near people the whole time and you can see yourself move up and down in places depending on how you shoot or ski.  In the first prone stage I had one miss, and moved up to 14th.  I cleaned the next stage and moved up to 10th.  With one miss in the first standing stage, I’d moved into 8th.  I was sort of in disbelief!  I tried to take my time and be careful in the last standing stage, but the adrenaline in my system took charge, and I ended up missing 3 in the last stage…as I did my penalty laps I saw most of the girls that I’d passed skiing by onto the course.  In the end I placed 16th–I’d still moved up, and most of all, I’d had fun!

That night we left at 1am on the bus to head back to Estonia, and then to Munich and then home. I had decided that I didn’t want to go home yet.  I felt like I was improving and learning in each race, and I wanted to keep doing biathlon races in Europe.  I decided that I would change my ticket home from Munich, and try to find a place to stay and train in Ruhpolding, Germany.  From there I’d try to find a way to race in some regional european biathlon races.  It was going to be an adventure!  But before I changed my ticket, I wanted to talk to Jonne, my head biathlon coach, just to sort of make sure that my plans were OK.

There were so many volunteers and police and people of all kinds helping out at the races. Almost all of them had cool big fur hats. I’m not sure which of us here looks the least happy. It was cold this last day there!

And when I got the call from him, he said that I had been named to the next World Cup in Antholz, Italy.  Since the races there were only 4 days away, I would fly to Munich and the drive to Antholz that night.  I was so happy and so tired, I couldn’t really even make sense of it.  I hadn’t really slept in 40 hours by the time I made it to Antholz at midnight the following night and collapsed into bed.  When I woke up the next morning and looked out at the beautiful mountains across the lake, and went downstairs to a breakfast buffet loaded with delicious fruit and cheese and things…I was pretty sure that I had died and gone to heaven.  And I would be racing the World Cup!! It felt like a dream..and it still does!!

Hotel Seehaus–a little piece of heaven on earth!

Antholz is sooo beautiful. I get distracted by the beauty as I ski around.

This is the view from start/warmup pen in the Antholz stadium

Alright, this blog is already way too long, so I’ll write more about my first World Cup in the next one!  If you made it this far…thanks for reading, you’re the best!