This kid’s name is Smiley. Fitting, don’t you think?

The NANA region contains 38,000 square miles, 11 villages, and is home to the Inupiaq People. I flew into the largest town, Kotzebue and then took a small bush plane to the village of Noorvik, which was the first town in the nation to be counted in the 2010 census: population 668. This was my first visit north of the arctic circle and my first visit to Alaska.

The scene at a village airport (Selawik). Villages are connected by snowmobile highways, rivers, and bush planes. For the most part, there are no traditional roads for cars and trucks except within villages.

As our plane landed, we parted a large herd of caribou which separated to either side of the runway.

Within 15 minutes of landing in Noorvik we found ourselves put to work handing out skis, boots and poles. Our team leader, Andrew Kastning from UAA, had put out a message on the town vhf radio that there was Sunday afternoon skiing available for the kids and a full crowd showed up within minutes. NANANordic had first visited Noorvik in 2012 and the kids couldn’t wait for the skiing to come back this year. Despite bringing a wide selection of gear and sizes, we often didn’t have quite the right sized gear for everybody, but it didn’t matter. They were happy to make it work, even if the boots were 3 sizes too big or the skis were two feet taller than they were. Every day after school we would outfit over 50 kids with skis then have to turn the rest away once we ran out of gear.

Passing through downtown with a gym class during the school week.

The most popular and our most commonly visited ski site was the beech of the frozen Kobuk River at the edge of town. There was a big hill that created hours of entertainment for some kids and gave others the freedom to ski across and explore fish camps and tributaries on the other side. One morning we even saw a moose running across the river.

Part of my role with NANANordic was to introduce the skiers to biathlon. I brought a rifle out to the river one day after school for a show and tell to talk about the sport. Biathlon originated in northern cultures as a means of hunting and could still be very applicable today.

We also adventured into the forest behind the school. I bet these little trees are over 60 years old and grow slowly in such a harsh climate.

Notice the Brooks Range in the background. You are looking at the northernmost section of the Continental Divide.

Sticks in the air! It took me a little while to get used to some new lingo: “sticks” were poles, “sliding” meant skiing downhill, “skates” sometimes were skis, “flying” meant hitting a jump, and a “snow go” is the same as a snowmobile.

We devised an organized gear storage system for the week in the back closet of the gym. After all the villages have been visited, NANANordic will divide up all the skis and leave some in each village. Part of our job was to think about who in the village might be interested in coordinating and caring for the gear after we left. We tried to encourage some of Noorvik’s older students to form a student run ski club to fill that role.

Noorvik Instructors: Odin Brudie, Frankie Pillifant, Dylan Watts- coach with APU, myself, and Andrew Kastning- ski coach at UAA. Odin and Frankie live in Juneau where they have spent years running a junior ski program (and hopefully a future biathlon program!) through the local 4-H club. Frankie also works in the NANA region’s Red Dog mine and had some great stories about life there.

At this time of year, the sun stays up in the arctic until about 11 pm, and the town kids would be outside playing during all daylight hours. If they weren’t outside, there was a good chance they were playing basketball in the school gym- which is an incredibly popular sport in the area.

One couple in town, Dave and Audrey, invited us to their house for dinner several times and offered us some local specialities including muktuk (whale skin and blubber).

They were very generous and also shared caribou stew (above), wild swan (“arctic turkey”), salmon, and wild blueberries, food they had harvested themselves.

The most impressive part was that they invited us over while they had an 11 day old newborn, Helen. Check out her traditional Inupiaq swing, made from rope, canvas, and a wood frame.

The first day we were in the arctic, we saw a couple sled dog races, including the finish of the multiday Kobuk 440 race in Kotzebue.

Some teams were still passing through Noorvik and stopping at an aid station there when we arrived.

Check out these sealskin pants. Very warm.

At the end of our stay in Noorvik, we had the option of doing a village-to-village ski before flying home. We skied 35 miles to Selawik on one of the snowmobile “highways” and our new friend Dave supported us on a snowgo. We carried packs loaded with food, water, dry clothes, and a few survival supplies. We also carried a rifle for safety. A real life application of biathlon! During the ski we saw a caribou herd and spotted wolf tracks in the snow.

The ski took almost 6 hours and despite mostly flat terrain, I bonked hard at the end. It was too cold to stop for very long to refuel. Luckily we had muktuk to snack on. During the first few hours, we were skiing thru mist and couldn’t see much in front of us. Most of the route went over flat tundra terrain without trees.

I had a wonderful time in Noorvik and can’t wait to go back to arctic Alaska again! I already miss being mobbed by friendly kids, aka “death by hugging.” Photo: NANANordic

The Travel
The biathlon circus traveled to Sochi on direct charter flights from Oslo. An additional cargo plane carried ski equipment and extra luggage. Our journey started out surprising smooth- we arrived in Sochi on time and passed through customs quickly. However, next we sat in coach buses in the airport parking lot for three hours until every athlete’s rifle cleared customs. Rumor has it the airport staff weren’t prepared for us because they didn’t know that biathlon involved firearms. The biathlon venue and village are about an hour’s drive from Sochi uphill and into the mountains. Even through it was 1 o’clock in the morning, we saw plenty of construction crews hard at work to complete the highway. We rode a gondola for the final leg of the journey with all our luggage to the top of a mountain.

Loading skis and wax equipment onto cargo trucks at the Holmenkollen stadium in Olso. I am going to count all that lifting as my strength workout for the week.

More waiting around at the base of the gondola, this time to get our accreditation. The village and venue are full of checkpoints and we can’t go anywhere without credentials.

View from the top of the gondola.

The Village

There will be several Olympic Villages for Sochi. The biathlete and cross country skier village is called the “Endurance Village.” It sits on top of a mountain, right next to our race venues. The “cottages” are very spacious and comfortable and surrounded by beautiful mountains.

The village, like the highway, is not yet finished but there hundreds of construction workers and many cranes.

The Venue

A view of the stadium (and the only flat part of the entire course.) Range is below me to the left. The cables overhead belong to another gondola- this one is for spectators. It travels directly above the shooting range and will have to shut down on race day once zeroing begins. Apparently, they are going to have to limit the number of spectators next year due to the logistic of getting people up the mountain and lack of space. Supposedly there is capacity for 5,000 in the stadium, which would be less than 1/4 of the crowds we have seen at World Championships the last couple years.

Probably the biggest biathlon stadium building in the world.

Our rifles were delivered en masse to the venue directly from the airport. We had to unpack and assemble them there. In Russia, unlike most other countries we visit, our rifles and ammo are secured in lockers up at the venue. We have to sign them out every day before training and return them immediately afterwards.

The shooting range. I suspect they will make the backdrop look prettier for next year.

Right now, there are metal rods sticking out of the concrete- like canons poking out of a pirate ship.

I’ve seen double seater outhouses before, but never expected to see anything like that at an Olympic venue… They are also the only athlete toilets I have found so far at the venue.

Leif took this picture and it was so great I had to steal it. A sampling of the team food at the venue. Snickers buffet anyone? Don’t worry, there were a few other options too. Photo: Leif Nordgren

Lots of construction vehicles all over the place.

My favorite part about Sochi so far is the venue staff and volunteers. They have been very friendly and keen on helping.

There are hundreds of them and they can be easily identified by their blues coats. Most of the volunteers are young and speak good English. One of the guys I talked to, Alex, comes from the Ural Mountains. He arrived a couple days ago and is helping here for a few weeks. He hopes he can come back next year to help too.

I competed in our Mixed Relay as the second leg and enjoyed the opportunity to ski head to head with Germany’s Miri Gössner and Belarus’s Darya Domracheva. In our anchor leg, Leif put on an exciting sprint finish with Slovakia and we ultimately finished 8th. (Photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)

This year, the Individual fell on my birthday. Last year at World Championships, I hit 19/20 of my targets in the Individual race and placed 5th. That was a very special day indeed. I was hoping for another good day but I tried to stay relaxed and be realistic. With biathlon, the harder one tries to have good day, the less likely it will pan out well.

(Live stream screen shot captured by Linda Jager).
This year I finished 15th with 2 penalties, one of my best results of the season. With that result, I met the pre-qualifying criteria for the Olympics. It was an awesome birthday!

Sometimes life’s most interesting memories come from moments of misfortune. In the last loop of the Individual, I fell on a downhill and broke the end of my rifle stock. Biathlon stocks are highly personalized, they take weeks to custom order, and can be costly. Breaking one is a major bummer. The positive thing about breaking a stock at World Championships is that the expertise needed to fix it is on site.

Benjamin from Anschütz worked overtime to help get mine repaired before the Women’s Relay. (Photo: Armin Auchentaller)

We just needed some wood, but since there was none to be found we salvaged some off the end of a broom handle. L to R: Benjamin, me and my coach Armin. Armin told me this was one of the “most interesting projects” he has seen in all his years of coaching and “will mean something 21 years from now.” (photo: Armin Auchentaller)

I think the broom helped me “clean”- I hit 100% of my targets in the next race, a first for me on the World Cup.

This week we had more familiar faces from home! This time the Dreissigacker Family came to cheer. It was Hannah’s first World Championships!

After our World Championships races finished, we could devote all our energy to cheering our guys in their last races. Thanks for lending us the face paint Czech guys’ team!

Our spirited crew

We were all very surprised by the number of spectators that came to watch the races- it felt a lot like Ruhpolding or Oberhof. The line of people streaming out of the stands post race just kept coming. Thanks for creating such a positive atmosphere Czech! (photo: Sara Studebaker)

The womens team’s biggest form of entertainment this past week came from a “Hollywood makeover” website. Hannah put her photoshop and graphic design skills to use on many of our staff and teammates. We weren’t sure how it would go over at first, but luckily our guys thought it more hilarious than offensive.

That’s when we decided that we should showcase some of our coaches’ and techs’ portraits on our waxroom door. Finally, a bigger female presence on the staff!

Another great form of entertainment was checking out the downtown shops, which were full of fun clothes and styles. Annelies just had to get this wig.

One of the last mornings in Czech we made breakfast with the Swedish girls. It was a lot of fun being able to cook and share!

Before all the craziness of racing takes over, I want to look back at the last few weeks with the team and share a little bit about what life is like when we aren’t busy training or racing. We ski a lot and we work hard, but life on the road also features a lot of down time in hotel rooms. Having interesting and fun people on the team makes a huge difference in our quality of life. I truly believe we have one of the most enjoyable and supportive team atmospheres of any country on the World Cup circuit.

This year the guys brought several remote control helicopters with them. Tim especially has logged many flying hours and is ready to study for his pilot’s license.

In Antholz we had 4 guitars, one banjo and one concertina between the staff and athletes. I can’t say it always sounded pretty (except when Lowell was playing of course), but we kept ourselves entertained.

We spent the two week break before World Championships training near Antholz, Italy. Here we are enjoying some après ski coffees and soaking up the Dolomite sunshine at Platz Weise. Talk about a rough day at the office! Tim heard from Andrea that the German team was stuck training in the Oberhof Ski Hall that same day due to rain. Photo: Sara Studebaker

During the Antholz World Cup, several of us had parents and relatives visiting who formed spirited cheering sections. It was a rare treat to hang out with my family (and other teammates’ families) in the middle of five months on the road. Photo: Lowell Bailey

In Italy, much of the day revolves around meal time. We would often spend at least an hour at lunch and 2+ hours at dinner crammed together around one long table. In the breaks between courses we had plenty of time to make (hilarious) conversation. I think I logged at least one hour every day laughing- that has got to be good for your health! We heard the same five pop songs 3 times a day (once every meal) and started composing our own words for them. Occasionally we ordered a couple bottles of wine as a treat and we learned that drinking the local La Grein turns your teeth and tongue purple.

One of many fancy courses we enjoyed in Antholz. photo: Elise Munn

While the food here in Czech isn’t bad, it isn’t quite as nice as in Italy. Since we have a lot of free time in the morning due to a late training schedule, Annelies and Hannah suggested we make our own breakfast yesterday morning. We had French toast (with Vermont maple syrup), fresh fruit and yogurt. It was awesome!

Leif

Chef Hannah

A happy group

After a 10th place relay in Antholz, we are excited to see what World Championships might bring! Photo: Elise Munn

I saw one American flag in the entire stadium.

I was curious who owned it, so I introduced myself and made friends with Meiko, Antje and Johanna, a German family. Meiko spent a few years living and ski racing in Salt Lake and they are big fans of the US Ski Team.

Kikkan ready to start

Holly and Liz started near each other and stayed together the entire race- awesome teamwork!

Jessie across the finish

We watched the men’s race from the famous Bergsteig climb.

The lack of snow made it very difficult to see over the sponsor banners, so we had so build ourselves a rock platform to watch from while little Johanna got to watch ski boots fly by at eye level.

Norwegian fans living it up at the top of the Bergsteig

Noah

Andy

Kris

Hanging out with Holly and Liz for a few moments post race. They had a long night of recovering, packing and driving ahead of them to get to the next Tour stop. What a rare treat to watch and cheer for the XC team! Our paths almost never cross during the winter race season.

Tim and myself

We participated in three different competitions: a shoot out (a shooting race to clean four stages, with spares if needed) and two relays: a mass start and a pursuit with 1.5 hr break in between. The relay ski course consisted of over 1 km of trucked-in snow that zigzagged around inside the stadium and threaded through tunnels that added an outside section. The shooting range was inside, had 10 points, and was protected by bulletproof glass. Each team member completed four legs of skiing and shooting for each race.

A view of part of the course. One of the tunnels to the outside can be seen in the back wall.

What was it like? Loud, very very loud. And wild. I have never experienced anything remotely like it. All the jet lag and exhaustion from 2 days of travel melted away as soon as I entered the arena. I think bigger crowds actually help me focus in on my own race better: it is like having tunnel vision. Rather than seeing hundreds of individuals in the stadium, I heard only a background roar. I saw only the racecourse and the targets.

I approached the event with two goals- to enjoy the experience and to use it as a learning opportunity. It was great training for dealing with the pressure of head-to-head shooting in front of hordes of spectators. I learned more about how my shooting responds to physical stress: as more lactic acid accumulated in my system, my shooting groups crept higher. I also got in some good relay practice loading spare rounds during the shoot out. The best way to get better at shooting in high pressure competitions is to practice in high pressure settings. Schalke was great practice for the World Cup.

Our wonderful waxing/zeroing crew and family: Kathrin, Christian, Lenia and Toni.

The scene during the shoot out competition

Flying to Germany in time for Schalke was one of the more complicated travel experiences I have had thanks to Vermont’s biggest snowstorm in 2 years. Many thanks to John Madigan, the Schultz family, and my dad and brother for braving snow and freezing rain to help me get there. I made it and even had a few hours to spare!

Read more about the Schalke race in this FasterSkier article

View of the lake in Bled. There was a beautiful church on a small island in the middle of the lake and a castle perched on a cliff across the way. Winter felt pretty mild down in town and several yards still had vegetables growing in their gardens.

Close up of the castle. I didn’t make it over to either the castle or the church to check them out, but I look forward to doing so next time the biathlon circus comes to town.

Bled has hosted high caliber rowing events, such as World Championships. The rowing center was a short walk down the hill from our hotel.

View of the biathlon stadium high in the mountains.

After a few training days with perfect hard packed tracks and sunshine, the sky let loose for the races. The sprint race dumped heavy slow, making for slow tracks. Our wax techs did an amazing job and our skis were faster than many other teams’. With 90% shooting, I placed 14th- my best result so far this season. I was psyched! (photo: Nordic Focus/USBA)

Sara and Annelies also had breakthrough days and we had 3 American women scoring World Cup points! We have put in a lot of work training together these past several years and it was great to see it pay off. (Team USA ladies L to R: me, Annelies Cook, Sara Studebaker, and Lanny Barnes).
The next day we saw another extreme- a cold downpour. As soon as we lay down on the mats to zero at the beginning of our warm up, we were soaked through. One of the French girls exclaimed that she had “swimming pools in [her] boots!” During the race I skied around lots of fast people but struggled on the range and dropped back to 38th place, still scoring World Cup points but barely. I ended up a couple places shy of a berth in today’s mass start. However, Tim Burke did compete in the mass start and placed third, the US’s best finish in the past couple years. It was a great week for the team and a good feeling to go home with during the break.

Team pic last week in Östersund, Sweden (photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)

(photo credit: tweet by sports_biathlon)

The Östersund races went alright. I was happy with my ski speed and look forward to hitting more targets in the future. I scored my first World Cup points of the season in the pursuit. My favorite part of those first races was hopping in behind race winner, Norwegian Tora Berger, during the sprint and matching her pace for a lap.

While racing in Europe, it is always exciting to see familiar faces from back home. Many thanks to Danika Frisbee and her father, Mike, for coming to visit and cheer! It was also great to have Chelsea Little from Fasterskier onsite to cover the North Americans.

Most of the Östersund races happened after sunset. Much of the course was illuminated by white lights, making the stadium seem as bright as day. However, a few parts of the course, out of sight of spectators and TV cameras, had only spotty yellow lights. By comparison, those sections felt like the middle of nowhere.

Our Östersund home, Camp Södergren, at night. The sky looks very bright because of the nearby stadium lights.

The week before the World Cup opener the Canadian cross country team was training at the same place as us. One night we had a guitar jam with the Canadian gals. (L to R: Lowell Bailey, Annelies Cook, Chandra Crawford)

A couple days ago, we traveled to Hochfilzen, Austria, site of World Cup 2, in a heavy snow storm. After Sweden, I am excited for longer daylight, natural snow and mountains. Race schedule: Friday- sprint, Saturday- pursuit, and Sunday- relay.

During the first half of training today, it was snowing so hard that the range workers had continuously sweep off the shooting mats. 25 minutes later, it cleared off enough to see a little sun. What a welcome sight!

Strength training in Austria with Canadian biathlete Megan Heinicke (photo: Rosanna Crawford).
Finding weight room facilities to maintain strength during the race season is very difficult, so sometimes we must improvise.

In my last blog post, I shared a little bit about the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Lately I have learned a bit about holidays in other places:

In France, November 25th is the feast of St. Catherine. Unmarried 25 year old women are labeled “Catherinettes” and their friends traditionally dress them up bachelorette style to wish them a fast end to singleness. Here are a couple of Catherinettes from the French team, dressed up by their teammates:

During the first nights of December, the Krampus comes out in the Alps. He is the devilish counterpart to St. Nicholas and comes out to terrorize naughty children. Watch out for the Krampus tonight!
(photo: Wikipedia)

To Americans, Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays of the year. It is a time to spend with family and dear friends, eat lots of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, and reflect on everything you have to be thankful for. I also like it because it is one of the least commercialized holidays in America.

I am thankful for my supportive family back home. They all raced in the Turkey Trot 5 km run in my hometown of Barton this morning; it is a family tradition. Then my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends and sometimes cousins get together for a giant dinner. When I am on the road I try to call them on Thanksgiving around dinner time and they pass the phone around the table to I can say hi to everybody.

I am also thankful for my other family- my teammates, coaches, and our staff. I got to celebrate with some of them this year. The wonderful staff at Camp Södergren where we are staying heard about the holiday and cooked us a Thanksgiving feast.

There was turkey, squash, brussel sprouts, green beans, and lingonberry sauce (Sweden’s version of cranberry sauce)

There wasn’t pumpkin pie but there was apple crisp and carrot cake for dessert

I don’t think the other teams staying here (the Japanese and the French) quite understood our excitement about dinner tonight.

Sara and I bought some wine to celebrate…

…And share with our team

Happy Thanksgiving!

The first World Cup biathlon race of the season takes place in Ostersund, Sweden on Sunday, November 25th (9:30 am eastern US standard time). It is a mixed relay, meaning that we will have two women and two men competing together on one team. You can watch it live on your computer by going to Biathlon World TV. Put it on your calendar.

In the meantime, watch replays from last year on Biathlon World TV to get fired up. The 2011/2012 World Cup 9 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia has some good ones- scroll to the right and click on the one titled “pursuit women replay”.

I have spent the past week at home in Craftsbury trying to catch up with friends and family and get organized before the long winter away.

A few items that are coming with me to Europe this year that I didn’t have last year: a travel size guitar, a sunlamp, maple syrup, a foam roller, a German grammar workbook and a 3D puzzle.

The Outdoor Center is closed for the fall off season, so it has been quieter than normal, but I have had no problem staying busy. Even though the GRP skiers are away training in Canmore, I have had a great time getting to know the new GRP rowers. We even trained together in the gym one morning- I did strength circuits while they lined up 7 or 8 rowing machines next to each other for an interval workout.

Dinner with the rowers and friends at Faraway Farm

The Outdoor Center started blowing snow last week, which meant I got to dust off an old pair or rock skis and carve some turns. Later in the week we had 15-20 BKL kids and juniors swarming over the pile like ants. It doesn’t matter how old you are, the season’s first snow never loses its magic.

Davis took the first sledding runs down “Mt. Craftsbury” (photo: Judy Geer)

Ida was also around for a few days before heading to Europe for the cross country World Cup season. We visited our elementary school together to talk to Barton’s seventh graders about training, racing and traveling the world. The most interesting question we were asked: “Have you ever seen a lion?”

I also visited my high school, St. Johnsbury Academy and talked to the students about what it takes to chase after big goals. Watch the YouTube video

I never got around to writing a blog post about our recent national team training camp in Utah (3 weeks in late October/ early November) but here are a couple pics:

The US Women and guest star Andrea Henkel from Germany enjoying Utah’s mountains (photo: Hannah Dreissigacker). Read about what it has been like to train with and get to know an Olympic champion over the past few years here

Some of “Jonne’s Angels” enjoying our last week in Utah (photo: Armin Auchentaller). For more camp pictures and a recap from Utah, check out Hannah’s blog post here