Skiing is coming soon and I couldn't be more excited!! The last two weeks we (the GRP biathlon team) did a training camp with the USBA X-team or development team. For the first week of the camp we traveled to Lake Placid where we were able to train on the rollerski loop. This is an important training tool that we do not have in Craftsbury so it was very beneficial to put in some training where I could rollerski and shoot together. Unfortunately in the middle of the camp in Lake Placid I caught a small cold and had to back of on training for a couple days. I was unable to do one of the interval works that I was looking forward to as one of the key workouts while we were there. Luckily I kicked the cold and was able to finish the week with some quality training. The second week of the camp the X-team came to Craftsbury and again we did some fairly quality training.
Training with the X-team had two real benefits, one was we were able to work with their coach Jean Paquet. Jean used to coach the Canadian National team until last year when USBA hired him. I really like him as a coach, I think he has lots of knowledge and insight about biathlon to offer as well as he is always pushing you trying to get you to the next level. Hopefully I will have more opportunity to work with Jean in the future. The second benefit of the camp with X-team was that there was three more guys to train with so we were able to create a competitive atmosphere during workouts. Shooting in a competitive atmosphere is much more challenging but that atmosphere can be hard to create when not at competitions so having these extra guys around was some good practice.
This coming Tuesday, November 3rd the team will be traveling to Foret, Quebec where they have saved snow from last winter and we will be able to ski!!! We will be there for four days doing intensity training. Hopefully we will be able to ski in Craftsbury soon after we return.
Our Halloween biathlon race. Costume required.
