August 28th, 2008
On Tuesday the clouds and rain moved back in so it’s been a chilly (about 50 degrees F) and wet past three days. I was training on the rollerloop at the venue twice a day until yesterday morning when I accompanied Haley on part of her overdistance run. Within the space of half an hour we passed a large group of elementary school-aged children out walking on the ski trails twice. Both times we were ushered on to a chorus of “hi-ja, hi-ja” and clapping from the children. These kids, in credit to their culture, idolize Nordic skiers and biathletes.
I’ve also been shooting twice a day. Shooting and physical training are very similar in the sense that you can get burnt out of either. It’s not easy to stay focused when you shoot twice a day and dryfire in between. But, the most helpful thing about training here is the number of athletes and coaches on the range. Instead of training by myself as I did all spring and summer, I’ve got two coaches and plenty of athletes to work with. For zeroing on Tuesday morning, our team skied range loops together and shot eight clips on paper without stopping in between. There was a small amount of pressure on each lap to shoot fast but well and stay with the group. Athletes often find that nerves shake their concentration when they train or race in front of a larger group of people than normal, so this is great practice early in the season.
Yesterday afternoon my rifle was tested in a cold chamber (-19C) with several types of ammunition to test the accuracy of the barrel and select which lots of ammo it shoots best. Afterwards, I did a two-hour technique combo workout at the venue. During the first hour I did short loops with two intensity combos at threshold to make sure I was healthy, as I’ve been fighting off a cold since last week. For the second hour I skied up to the top of the venue and did laps around a 2k rolling loop. When I descended back to the stadium, I saw a group of at least 25 kids, all less than 12 years old, doing running combos around the range and shooting real rifles at real targets. Impressive! We certainly don’t have that kind of interest, or a program to support it, at such a young age in the States. There simply isn’t enough support for biathlon in high school or college athletics programs so we have to pull from a post-collegiate pool of athletes; biathlon exists quietly off center stage in the U.S. In Sweden, athletes are cultivated from a young age and supported throughout all of their schooling. The sports university in Östersund is a great example.
Today I tested ammo again at an indoor range at the university in Östersund. We had to hand load twenty rounds of each of the two best lots and shoot as steadily as possible in order to see a difference between the two groups. This information will help each of us choose our best lot, which is the one we’ll order to use for the competition season. It’s not easy work to do…after the first twenty rounds my arms were shaking a little and my vision was getting blurry. We also tweaked my prone position a little by adding extensions to the butt plate on my rifle and sliding the handstop forward. This will force me to spread my elbows a little farther apart and prevent the rifle from recoiling to the right. Tomorrow there’s a cross race in Östersund but I won’t be participating because I have VO2max testing and two consecutive days of racing to follow.
