Casey Smith Biathlete: VT Living

I've been in Craftsbury and training full swing for a little over a month now. It took me the first two or three weeks to get in the groove and figure out how things at the outdoor center work, the training, work hours, and eating. Since then things have been going smoothly. The whole set up of the Green Team and Craftsbury Outdoor center is pretty ideal for high level athletes. The Outdoor Center is basically a destination resort, in the summer they host 3-5 day long rowing and running camps where people from all over the country, mostly the east coast, come to eat, sleep, get technique coaching, and relax. At any given time there is usually 40-50 "campers" at the center. We (athletes) are basically employees of the center and we must work an average of 10 hours per week in exchange for our room and board, training, coaching, and travel costs. We get to eat lunch and dinner in the dining hall at the center so we don't have to cook or do dishes which is really awesome!

Some of the projects I have been working on for my work hours around the center are helping build mountain bike trails, making difficulty markers for the mountain bike trails, building a new woodshed, and most recently building an information kiosk. There is a pretty broad range of projects that are available to do, pretty much anything that is improving the Outdoor Center can be counted as work hours.

Training has been in full summer mode, I have been trying to get in lots of hours and build up a good base for the winter. I don't think I have trained quite as many hours through the mid-summer weeks as I did last year but I am trying to make all of the training I am doing as high of quality as possible. It is really nice to have a team to train with especially during intensity workouts, it makes it easier to push yourself more. I like working with my new coach Pepa, she knows what she is doing and has a good overall handle on training. She has been working with me on my ski technique and I think I have made some good improvements.

Coming up this weekend is the first two of four rollerski trials races. In March everyone including myself assumed that I would not be racing this weekend because of my crash but I have been doing hard intensity rollerskiing for the last three weeks and have not had any issues so I will be racing.

The trials are technically selection for the fourth and final World Cup start spot but that spot is also a discretionary pick spot so I guess that by doing the races USBA will be able to survey athletes that aren't on the national team and see if there are any shinning stars.

Coming up on September 3rd the Green Team, myself included, will be traveling to Ramsau, Austria for a training camp where we will be skiing on the glacier. I am really excited for this trip because I have never been to Europe in the Summer and never skied on a glacier before.