Casey Smith Biathlete: Home for Christmas

After the trials in Minnesota I headed home for a week to celebrate Christmas with my family. The few days before I came home it rained a bunch melting about half of the snow that was on the valley floor but luckily there was still enough snow for excellent skiing! Up in the mountains all of the precipitation came in form of snow which made for amazing snowmobiling. There was at least two feet of fresh powder on top of about four feet of solid base snow, if you were riding in untracked snow and came to a stop you would get stuck just because of snow much fresh snow. After a couple of days of snowmobiling when I first got home I got back to training. I did a couple of combo workouts on the range in Mazama and one really long ski on the trails on the rendezvous. On Christmas day I went for a really nice ski with my mom starting from the town trailhead.

While I was at home I talked with the Methow Trail association (formerly MVSTA), the organization that maintains and grooms the beautiful trails in the Methow, and came up with an agreement where they will give me a ski pass to use the trails if I help to promote them. I am really excited about this and think that it will be a good deal for both of us.

After being at home I traveled to Old Forge, New York where I spent few days with Maddie and her family. There was not enough snow there to ski but I still had a fun time. I am now in Lake Placid, New York at the Olympic Training Center training before leaving to Poland for the IBU Cup. There is snow making on the biathlon trails here in Lake Placid so the skiing is perfect.