Canmore

The last two weeks in Canmore have been filled with lots of training, I have gotten in a very good block of on snow distance training and am ready for the race season to start. The first race of the year was supposed to be yesterday but it was to cold to race. There is a rule that it is illegal to race below      -20c (-4f). Right now I as I am writing this I waiting to hear if we will race today its currently -28c       (-18f), so its not looking good for racing today.


When we first arrived in Canmore we had lots of work to do on our skis to get them ready for the season, each pair of freshly stone ground or new skis must go through a complex waxing process to get them race ready. Each ski must be waxed a total of ten times and skied on in between each waxing. I had five pair of skis that went through this process and there is four MWSC athletes here all with new skis. I will let you do the math on how many coats of wax that is. It took about a week but eventually everyones skis were ready to go.

Overall training conditions have been ideal, fresh grooming, until this weekend not terribly cold, and lots of biathletes from all over Canada to train around.

Coach Seth working away in the wax room

All of our skis on the wall

Getting ready to go do so ski testing

My clothes line in our room, a good place to dry clothes is essential when doing lots of training.

Friday, the official training day for the races the massive Canadian flag was  full flap. 

Some ice build up on the beard

On Saturday we woke up to about a foot of fresh snow, since it was to cold to race I decided to shovel our driveway then I shoveled our neighbors driveway and put all the snow in one giant pile. 

Since we couldn't race on Saturday I went for an easy ski with my mom.  

The road to Canmore

Before leaving Maine last week I had a couple of really fun opportunities. First off it snowed in the county, in Fort Kent we only got a couple of inches it was enough to ski in our front yard but that was about it. Further south in Caribou they got about 8 inches and so one of the cross country athletes fired up his snowmobile and groomed a 2km loop in the field behind his house. Considering that there wasnt that much snow and he was grooming by dragging a pallet behind his snowmobile the skiing was quite good. A couple days later it snow more in Fort Kent, this time it was enough to put on some rock skis and slog around the trails. It was not nearly as good as the skiing was in Caribou but we still had skis on our feet and were sliding around on white stuff. 

The skiing in Caribou

My new Madshus ski bag all packed and ready to go

The skiing in Fort Kent

Last weekend before flying west the entire MWSC post highschool team got together in Portland, Maine for a fundraising gala. The event took place at the Portland art gallery, we mingled with the people donating and a couple of the athletes talked about what the MWSC program has done for them. The art in the gallery was very interesting I am not really an art expert but I think it would have been considered "modern" art. I couldn't imagine paying for any of the art that was in the gallery like the piece in the picture below, I thought it looked like it was drawn by a third grader, it could be yours for only $2,500.

A $2,500 piece of art

The next day after the fundraiser the MWSC crew joined the bates, bowdoin, and colby college ski teams aboard the North Haven Island ferry to compete in the Maine state college rollerski championship. I had never done this race before but it was super cool because it started with an hour long ferry ride out to the island then the 15km race made one loop around the entire island. I had an okay race I placed 5th overall. Just being on the island and seeing everything was awesome!

A lighthouse as were leaving the mainland on the ferry

Maddie on one of the island docks

Maddie with the all of the island docks in the background

Riding the ferry home we had a super cool sunset

 After rollerski race I flew home to Washington and then drove to Canmore. I did this rather then flying straight to Canmore because I wanted to race the Canadian IBU cup trials that were taking place before the rest of the MWSC crew arrived. It was an uneventful but long trip. I arrived to Canmore just in time because up until two days before I arrive it had been very warm and the nordic center has been unable to make snow and the frozen thunder snow that people have been skiing on was getting very thin. Luckly it got cold and the snowmaking process was in full swing, right now there is about 2.5km of snow but there is going to be lots more very soon. Like I mentioned earlier I did the Canadian IBU cup trials races on the 2nd and 3rd day that I was here. The first day I shot 2,2 (4 misses) and my skiing felt very wobbly but that was expected since I havent been on snow very much this year. The second race felt much better I shot 1,1 and I felt like I could actually ski and not just flail around on skis.

Flying out of Seattle to Wenatchee

The snowmaking cloud that sits over the Nordic Center

Waxing up new Madshus skis

Racing the Canadian IBU cup trials

Another racing picture

The final week

This last week was a major turning point, the training season has basically ended and the race season is about to start. The thing about this week is that even though I have been looking forward to it for a while I have also been intimidated by it because I knew it was going to be very hard. Luckily, I just traveled to Maine I didn't have very much time to think about it before it actually started. The week really started last weekend in Jericho with the rollerski races then I came home and did four more days of intervals two days of level 3 and two days of level 4. The L3 workouts were 2 x 20mins with shooting and 4x12 min skiing on the road with no shooting. The two L4 workouts were 8 x 3min running on a very hilly course chasing my teammate Russell with shooting, this was the hardest workout of the week, and then the last workout was a 6km time trial with shooting. Overall I did 6 intensity workouts in 8 days and it left me pretty tired but it also need to be done so that I will be skiing fast in about a month. Now I get to take a couple of days of chill time and recover from all the hard work. 

One of the highlights of the week was Sunday afternoon when it started snowing, we only got a couple of inches but Monday morning we pushed all the snow from the yard into one pile and made a jump to go off. It was pretty fun to be back on real skis again!

I came home from Jericho to a big box of new Madshus gear

My Madshus box included a new giant ski bag that could double as a body bag

The pumpkins our house carved on Halloween

Going off the jump in our front yard

Some more going off jumps

On the move

It has been a while since my last blog post, luckily for you blog readers out there it was not because I had nothing to blog about but the fact that I was doing so much I had no time to blog. I am now back in Fort Kent and have some time to catch up.  My last post I was finishing up a big training block in Utah that went very well and I think will help me a lot this winter. 

After Utah I traveled home to Washington for four days where I did some training and did as much normal person living as I could before Winter sets in and I just live the athlete life. Now that I mentioned it I am not exactly sure what most peoples normal people living is, but for me it usually involves lots of work around the house and with the sheep. Every time I go home I am enjoying working with the sheep more and more so all of that "work" is a good thing. Some of the sheep work we did was trim the rams feet, kind of like trimming your toe nails, so that they are in good shape for breading season which is coming up soon. This task became a lot easier a couple years ago when we purchased a sheep hoof trimming table. The hoof trimming table is basically a big cage that the sheep walks into and then pivots so that they are mostly upside down. This way the feet are accessible and when the sheep is on its back it becomes more docile. Before we had the table we would basically just wrestle the sheep onto their back and then have to bend over and hold their feet up, I don't think words can really explain how much easier the trimming table makes this job. Another sheep related job I helped with was shipping the wool that we had shorn off the sheep in the Spring. We stuff the wool into these bigs burlap sacks then bundle two sacks together which weigh about about 50 pounds then take it to the post office where we ship it to the a woolen mill. In a few months the mill will send us back blankets that we will sell. 

While at home I also helped get, split, and stack more firewood as well as I got a load of hay and stacked it in the barn. Another fun thing that I did at home was go hunting with my friend Remington, we didn't get anything but it was pretty fun hiking around in the woods. 

Maddie striking a pose over the Heber valley on the last day in Utah

Trimming the rams feet, if you look close you can see the sheeps feet through the blue grate, its head is over by my dad and near the ground

A pickup load of wood with trailer of hay behind

The river near our house, I thought it looked nice so I had to take a picture

Clare Egan and I finishing ski walking intervals in the pouring rain

Taking wool to the post office

The post master labeling the wool for shipping 

Remington and I hunting

More hunting 

The view from the top of the hill that we got to while hunting

After my time at home I traveled to Winter Park, Colorado where I coached a masters biathlon clinic with my friend and teammate Raleigh Goessling. I flew from Seattle to Denver, and was pretty proud of how I got from my Grandpa's house in Seattle to the airport. Keep in mind I had my backpack, ski bag, and rifle case for all of this. So I started at the house walked to the end of the block where I got on the city bus. I rode the city bus downtown where I got off and walked about a block to the light rail station, I then took the light rail to the airport. I then had to walk about a quarter mile from the airport light rail station to the airline checkin desk, I was envious of all the other travelers with their small roller bags wheeling along while I was struggling but I considered hauling my stuff around my strength workout for the day.

The camp in Colorado went really well. There were a lot of beginners and new rifles but we got everyone started on the right foot and excited to learn more about biathlon. It seemed like everyone went home with more shooting skills as well as Raleigh and I made some money which is why we hosted the camp in the first place. After the camp I put together a blog page for the campers that has a lot of information about biathlon and training for biathlon. Even though I made it so that people at our camp could have all the info we talked about I want anyone interested in learning more about biathlon to be able to use it as a resource. The blog address is  biathlonresourceusa.blogspot.com

Driving over the Cascade mountains to Seattle

Riding the bus with all my stuff going to the airport 

The biathlon range in Colorado

Most of the campers in Colorado, a few had to go home early

After Colorado I traveled back east for the second set of rollerski trials races in Jericho, Vermont. These were the final two races to determine who will go to the first three World Cup races for the US. Because of the way the selection process works the only people that still had a chance to qualify after the August races were Russell Currier, Sean Doughty, and Annelise Cook. There was one spot for the guys and two for the girls, Russell struggled with his shooting over the weekend so it looks like Sean will be the fourth guy for the US and they will not fill both spots on the womens side and only take Annelise. I struggled with my shooting a bit in these races, I think that I need to do some more practice shooting during intensity sessions. My skiing was pretty solid both days, not great but not terrible either.

Results day 1 10km sprint

Results day 2 10km sprint

My new boots awaited my arrival to Fort Kent, THANKS MADSHUS!!!!!

Just Training

So far this week has been pretty straight forward, lots of roller skiing, some running and resting whenever I can. We started the week out with an intensity workout that was a combination of L3 & L4. First we did 12 continuos minutes of 10/20/30 which is 10 seconds all out, 20 seconds at 10km race pace, and 30 seconds easy skiing. After that we did 4 x 5 minutes of L4 switching between double pole and no pole skiing. Finally we did 2 x 10 minutes L3. This was a good workout, I had consistent shooting with only 2 misses out of 40 shots.

The next day we did the French shooting test, if you don't know what the French shooting test is I explain it here. As some incentive to do well one of our coaches, Jean, said that if anyone has a score of 500 or better he would buy them a coffee and a treat in the airport on the way home. Scoring a 500 is never easy in this test but it was going to be even more difficult today because wind was blowing pretty good, about half a flag to the right. Then as soon as we started the first part of the test the wind changed directions and started blowing about half a flag from the left. The precision part of my test was not terrible, but not my best either. After the first part, precision, I took an additional 5 shots to re-zero before the speed parts. This helped me to do pretty well in the test but not quite good enough to get treated by Jean. I scored a 497 only 3 points short of the sought-after 500, none the less it was still a good score.

French test scores

Wednesday we did our second intensity workout of the week. This workout was long! It was also one of those workouts that when you finish you can honestly say this particular workout made me a better athlete. The workout was 6 x12 minutes L3 with shooting. The 12 minute loop included Solider Hollow's famous Hermods hill which tops the limits set by the FIS for length and steepness of hills on a ski course. When it was all said and done I did over an hour of L3 and three hours of total skiing. Below are my shooting scores with times, the first number is the time of the first shot and the second number is the total shooting time. We also used spare rounds like you would use in a relay race. The first number is the number of penalties you have and the second is the number spare rounds you used, for example no penalties with 1 spare round is 0+1. We also had our lactates taken after the 2nd and 4th loop those numbers can also be seen below.

Shooting scores

Utah Week 1

The first week of training in Utah is finished and was very successful. I did lots of volume training as well as some intensity toward the end of the week. The majority of the training was roller skiing and running with one strength workout and one long hike.

On Friday we did a head to head speed workout with the Canadian National Team, this is basically a mass start race but with short ski loops, only about 1km rather then the standard 3km that you would do in a real mass start race. I thought this was the most fun workout we did all week, I really like head to head workouts because you can push yourself to keep up with people better then you and there is an additional mental challenge of actually racing the person right next to you and knowing that if you are ahead of them you are beating them. I shot really well in this race with only one miss in my first prone stage. I finished 4th overall and was the first American, I was pretty excited about this because it was the first time I have beat the guys on the A team in any race of time trial.

Full results from head to head workout with Canadians

An afternoon run with Maddie above our house in Midway, Utah

A view of the venue at Solider Hollow

The range at Solider Hollow

Another highlight workout of the week was climbing Mt. Timpanogos, the second tallest peak in Utah. I always enjoy getting to the top of any mountain but this one was extra cool because anytime I come to Solider Hollow I see Mt. Timp towering above the venue and think about how it would be fun to get to the top. Now I have! The hike took me 4 hours and 45 minutes, there is a pretty good trail that went all the way to the top of the 11,752 ft summit, there was a snow in a few places and we had to use a little extra caution but overall it was a super fun hike.

View of Mt. Timp from the driveway of our house 

Hiking up the trail to Mt. Timp

Hiking toward the top of Mt. Timp

The top of Mt. Timp with an observation deck/shelter

This guy came up to say hi at the top

Coming up October 18-19 Raleigh Goessling and I will be hosting a masters biathlon camp in Granby, Colorado. This will be similar to the camp that we hosted last year in the Methow Valley and is open to any masters biathlete interested in improving their biathlon skills before the season starts. We are hosting the camp to earn money for our upcoming race season and as a way help improve the level of biathlon knowledge in the US. The event registration can be found here. 

Raleigh and I at last years masters camp in the Methow Valley