Placing tenth in the relay in Korea was a satisfying way to finish up World Championships. Overall, Korea was a positive experience for me. My 58th place in the sprint was rewarding because I qualified for the pursuit and was finally able to experience the heightened mental pressures of a pursuit format race. I didn’t shoot well at all in this race and realized that the first time you start is when you find out just exactly who and what you’re up against. The second time you start a pursuit you can go in with a strategy. But you always have to start somewhere. In a sense, the relay was even more exciting than the pursuit because all four of my teammates pulled off great races to keep us in the mix with teams such as the Czech Republic, Romania, and Norway throughout the entire race. When I started as the third leg, our team was in about 12th place. I was so excited that I experienced an adrenalin rush such that I didn’t feel any lactic acid building in my legs up the first climb. The course essentially consisted of one long climb out of the range (split into two long hills), a short downhill followed by a short steep climb, then a level section before the long downhill into the range. Facing gusty winds for my prone stage I used two extra rounds, but only one in standing under calm conditions. On each lap I passed one to two skiers, which was necessary because I used a little more time on the range, as I do even in normal races. The important thing to me right now is to hit targets and allow the speed to come naturally. On the last lap I left the range right behind Solveig Rogstad of Norway and passed her midway up the long climb. She managed to pass me back right before the range approach but I maintained close enough contact to allow Tracy Barnes to pass Tora Berger of Norway on the last leg. Individually, the four of us don’t often beat the Norwegian women, but as a team we proved that with good shooting we can all compete at a high level. This is extremely promising for us.

Lucikly, I had no trouble adjusting to the time difference once I returned home from Korea. With fresh snow at Notchview I couldn’t resist using some of my off days to explore the trails where I competed in my first Bill Koch Festival, and eight years later another one was just about to take place. After a refreshing four days at home I returned to Lake Placid to begin training for the Vancouver World Cup. We started with a few days of distance skiing and strength, skiing up to 2.5 hours at a time. In previous years I recall doing less and less training as the season progressed and would have viewed a 2.5-hour ski at this point in the season outrageous. Now I recognize it as necessary for maintaining a high level of fitness throughout the year and as hours in the tank for next year. Toward the end of the week we started doing intensity combos, which are important not only for fitness and speed but also for maintaining sharpness on the range in race situations. The first set was 6 times 10 minutes at threshold, followed two days later by 6 times 7 minutes at race pace. At this point in the year, spending 60 minutes at threshold is far less daunting than it would have been two years ago. This tolerance has only been gained by building in small gradual steps year after year. It takes persistence and patience more than anything to become a successful ski racer, a reality I become acquainted with more and more each year.

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