We started off the rest of the races with a rather solid relay, staying in the mix with other teams the entire time, which encouraged us to ski fast and yet approach the range carefully in order not to be set back by using extra rounds.  I felt like I skied the most aggressively that I have all year, yet paced myself the best because I was skiing with other people.  Sometimes it takes “being in the mix” to make you want to ski that hard, because you know that your best race will put you at better than 50th place and one or two misses doesn’t put you in a hopeless situation.  It may not be the best attitude to have if you’re in any way aspiring to have significant results at international races, but in the process of development (and after a long, tough season), I think it’s important.  With three misses in the sprint I had an average but not desirable start spot for the pursuit, so I was even more determined to use good shooting to move myself up the following day.  I missed five total targets, paced well throughout the race, and moved up six places.  I don’t get to do very many “true” pursuits each year and don’t always move up in them, so I was pleased to end with such a race.

After a long day of travel with stops in four different countries, I made it back to Lake Placid just in time for some great spring skiing.  By ten o’clock this morning temperatures were around 40F and I could smell spring in the air.  It’s the kind of weather that makes me want to be outside; that makes the last ski of the year preemptively nostalgic even though during all those sub-zero sessions during the winter you vow to put the skis away as soon as the very last race is over.  We’ll be training here in Lake Placid until Monday, when we drive up to Fort Kent for U.S. Nationals, followed by U.S. XC distance championships and SuperTour finals the following week.  My intention right now is to finish the season with the U.S. Championship 30k and possibly the 7.5k SuperTour classic mass start, my first classic race since freshman year of college! And speaking of college…that’s where I’m headed afterwards.”

On Wednesday I returned home with my family. Due to delays getting flights out of the East Coast I didn’t get home until 4am Thursday morning, but that afternoon I was on my way to ski at Notchview with my mom. Their voicemail message told us that they had received 17 inches of snow two days prior and that they hadn’t been able to groom it right away, but no one picked up the phone to let us know how conditions were that day. Well, they still weren’t able to groom it two days later. The snow was wet and heavy and the piston bully broke down trying to navigate the trails, but we followed the tracks of some other ambitious skier along one of the piston bully’s footprints. I was glad to have a break from the daily “official” training, when every loop and every shot are planned in advance and there’s no freedom to choose your workout. I was missing the days when I’d go out on a pair of snowshoes after a big snowstorm, so the next day I headed out with my mom and our three dogs for a morning snowshoe before driving to the airport.

That was Friday. On Saturday evening I arrived in Otepaa, Estonia for U26 European Championships, sans rifle. I just got my rifle last night, the night before our first race. The one thing being without a rifle allowed me to do was focus on skiing easy instead of skiing loops with the goal of making it back to the shooting range, which usually speeds up the pace. We’ve got four races here over the next six days-Individual, relay, sprint and pursuit. The senior women’s field has about 55 racers and is comprised of both Olympic and non-Olympic athletes.

I held my shooting together for three clean stages in a row but came into the fourth stage pretty tired and wasn’t able to settle five good shots, hitting three instead. It’s only the second time I’ve ever shot 18 for 20 in a four-stage race, and the first time was in a time trial back in ‘07. I can’t say as much for the skiing. After two decent laps I hit a wall, and it was a struggle from there. My objective became finding a speed that I could just maintain for the rest of the race without completely tanking before it was over. In the end, I was really happy with my shooting. I’m happy with any personal best and because biathlon combines two sports, sometimes that personal best only comes in one of them. The race I look forward to is the one when I can combine perfect shooting on the range with a perfect day on the tracks. It just seems to be the race that’s twice as elusive, but that’s why years of racing experience count so much in this sport.

Yesterday I was the featured Team GreenLaces Olympian. Being part of Team GreenLaces not only means I get to wear a pair of bright green shoelaces around when I go running, but it’s also a way to remind myself of the promise I made to help the environment, and to inspire others to do the same. There are lots of other athletes in Vancouver who have made their own promises, and it’s fun to see all the shoes with green laces lined up outside our doors in the USA house.

Once I made it out of the stadium and past all the noise I had to figuratively pinch myself and remember the race at hand. I came through the first lap feeling as though I had paced well, and looking back at the analysis, I actually skied a decent time. As most of you have probably already read, the organizers put fertilizer down on the course to help compact the snow, as warm temperatures and rain had caused it to become deep and slushy. This made a huge difference and the course was actually somewhat fast in many places, not to mention that our wax techs turned out some excellent skis considering the variability in conditions throughout the course.  Our team of technicians has been doing considerable research over the past four years at this venue to turn out some Bauer grinds designed especially for these conditions.

The crowd was cheering wildly as I approached the range, but I realized to my relief that it was for a Canadian just leaving the start, so I convinced myself that I was all alone on the shooting range. I missed my last shot and it was when I got up off the mat that I realized how beat my legs were. They started to burn on the first uphill after the stadium and when I tried to jump-skate the next big hill, simply didn’t want to respond. It was disappointing and tough to face the fact that I was going into one of the most important races ever on the tired side. The training has been so focused yet minimal this past week, but it seems that it just wasn’t enough of a taper for me this time. In the end, I missed one target each in prone and standing but finished out of the top 60, so I won’t be starting the pursuit on Tuesday. Instead, I’ll use the next four days to get the rest I need in order to start the Individual on Thursday, our longest race at 15 kilometers, refreshed.

We flew back into Vancouver from the small regional airport in Comox (on Vancouver Island) at the end of our training camp. Vancouver Island, or Mount Washington rather (as there was no snow once you got off the mountain), provided us with a non-stop flurry of wet, wind-driven snow. The weather conditions made for slow tracks but I could see the course being great fun for racing. We spent one afternoon in Vancouver going through team processing. This included being outfitted with Team USA Nike and Ralph Lauren apparel, followed by a team picture and a briefing from some of our Olympic ambassadors the following morning. After that, it was off to the Whistler Olympic Village.

We arrived at the outer gates with all of our luggage, including rifles, and after some minor confusion about how to get the rifles past the metal detectors, presented them for inspection to the police and checked them into lockers. Our bus driver took us the long way through the village to our building, which happens to be right across from the one entrance we use most frequently, but we got the tour nonetheless. We had time to settle into our rooms and unpack before a team briefing, after which I spent some time trying to tape over all the Adidas stripes on my backpack and non-team issue gloves and hats, and the names on my rifle case and drinkbelt.

This morning, before the sun really showed up, we were back in the Callaghan Valley at Whistler Olympic Park, doing a time trial on the Olympic course. It’s nice to be back and even better to be here because we’ve raced on this course several times in the past and already know it well. You have to work this entire course. Even though it’s a little more rolling than most courses, none of the downhills follow straight lines so the legs and back are constantly under stress as you work the corners. The stadium is built up but not nearly as big as any of those in Europe—I hear they’ve limited the spectators to 4,000. Nevertheless, this is the Olympics, and cresting the last hill into that stadium on race day is going to feel like something very special.

We’re getting an early start out to western Canada because we’ve got a training camp on Mt. Washington, on Vancouver Island. There are quite a few teams and disciplines also taking advantage of the ski resort and 20-point shooting range, which I’ve never visited before.

On day 1 I set out in the morning for what was planned to be a short and easy classic ski. Several minutes into the ski I knew that wasn’t going to be the case. With temperatures right around freezing and fresh snow falling, hard wax just wasn’t doing the trick and I hadn’t brought any klister with me. I struggled around for about an hour before I finally caved in and started skating the uphills and doule-poling the flats, worried that I might not make it back in time for lunch. In spite of the challenge, I still managed to take in some of the beautiful scenery of Mt. Washington. Out on the “Far East” trail I saw only a few people but lots of snow-covered wooded hillside. The quiet was a comforting escape from the hustle and bustle of the airport I’d experienced for 12 hours the day before. There is quite a lot of snow here, and it’s warm. By the time we went out for afternoon training, fresh snow had covered the tracks from the morning and made some of the trails unrecognizable.

It’s nice to be able to relax just a little ways outside of Vancouver while we fine-tune our skills for the last time before the Games.

I’ve been taking it easy these past few days in order to recover from January’s races before our pre-Olympics training camp on Mount Washington in British Columbia. I’ll do some more intensive shooting drills in the next few days along with some technique sessions. Other than that, I’ll try to get ample rest. It’s the calm before the storm, although I’m already trying to cope with an perpetually filling Inbox and organizing what to bring to Vancouver and in what location to leave the rest of my gear, as I split my “rest” days between Lenox and Lake Placid. This is a great time of year to be in Lake Placid, though, because the entire Training Center is getting hyped up for the Games.

Immediately after the relay race our women’s team departed for Antholz in the South Tirol of Italy. This is one of the most beautiful venues, especially when you catch it on a clear or sunny day, as the range is tucked into the base of some enormous mountains. Our first race was an Individual, but Antholz is at altitude so we came a little early and stayed at a hotel at the venue to acclimatize. I had two great days of extra blue classic skiing over the weekend.

I’m using this week to get in a few more training hours than a typical “race” week. On Monday I did about 50 minutes of threshold combos and went for a long classic ski the day before the Individual. I’ll keep this up for the remainder of the week to help rebuild some base before we begin tapering for the Olympic races.

Wednesday was the 15k Individual. This is the first Individual race I’ve done this season and is the longest biathlon race format as well. Being at altitude, it was important to approach this race a little more conservatively. Looking back over my heart rate file from the race, I spent most of the time at level 3. This was really a tough day for me, however, because I started to have some trouble breathing on the second loop, which forced me to back down on the pace. Standing shooting was great; I hit all ten of my standing targets. In prone I was challenged by shifting light over the course of the day and had some trouble seeing the targets. Partway through my third shooting stage I tried shutting one of my eyes to block out the excess light. This worked and it’s the approach I’ll use in the sprint race, which starts at the same time of day.

I have to say that one of the best things about these races is that even people we don’t know are out there cheering for us by name. There are a lot of positions that our staff needs to fill at a biathlon race so limited bodies remain to be out on course. We always have at least one coach in the range checking targets and transmitting shooting information or corrections (in a four-stage race with two prone shootings) out to someone on course who will show us the position of our shots on a magnetic target board. Our high performance director is out on course with a computer to give us splits. In the Individual there is another person out there to hand us feed bottles. And in most every race there is someone in the start pen to make sure we have all our equipment checked in, to get us information via radio on conditions in the range, and to make sure we get to the start on time. It’s a lot of work for the team staff but they do it infallibly and like clockwork. Since they’re so busy, it’s great when the photographers or fans pick up start lists and cheer for us by name.

In the time trial sprint race last Thursday I cleaned for the first time. Ever. This was a huge step forward for me and I left the final stage grinning. In the IBU Cup sprint race on Saturday we encountered some strong and gusty winds in the stadium. It was a tough day for shooting all around and I managed to hold it together with three total penalties. I’m thankful I didn’t have any more than that because the penalty loop was lopsided with snowdrifts. My ski time was in the top quarter of the field and, for not feeling at the peak of my physical shape, is a promising starting point.

Today I’m headed back to Ruhpolding for World Cup #5 which begins with a sprint race on Wednesday. Thanks, everyone, for following! And congratulations to all my teammates with USBA for their hard work.

We arrived at the venue for ski testing this morning, the morning of the pursuit race, wary of the cloud of fog that had enveloped the entire venue since last night. We were soon told that zero would be pushed back half an hour in hopes that the fog would clear from the range, but there were no promises that the race would still go on. They would decide that after zero.

On my way to equipment check I heard a shout from one of our coaches 15 minutes before zero was supposed to begin that the range was being opened at that moment and, as I was first in line on one of our two zero points, I hurried over. On my way into the range I heard the Chief of Range’s whistle blow and saw a sudden migration of coaches with their scopes from the coaches’ box behind the range up to the firing line. It simply was not possible for them to see from where they were. I lay down at my point and began the process of zeroing, only I couldn’t make out my target through the thick fog. I made my best estimate and took five shots; although it’s possible the dark spots appeared only because I was trying so hard to concentrate. Coach Gary squinted through the scope, used his glove to rub it clean, and squinted again, telling me, “I can only see two shots and they’re off to the left in the white.” Not so good. I’ll try again. First we replaced my size 3.5 aperture with a size 3.6 to give me a little more white space around the target. I held my sights below the line of paper targets to center myself below target “alpha” and then raised the sights up to the point where I thought I was even with the targets and shot five more shots. “Well, most of your shots are in the black,” Gary said, not distinguishing whether that meant the prone ring or the entire standing target, to which I replied, “So, are we going to call that zero?”

The entire range was a similar scene. Coaches, standing with scopes at their athletes’ feet, raised their hands in consternation as some athletes looked hopelessly down range and most laughed at this apparent joke. It was impossible to zero, a guessing game! Soon a crowd of coaches formed at one end of the range and the whistle was blown; an announcement was made in German that the race was cancelled but they would still be holding a cross-country race, an 8-kilometer pursuit with the same start intervals as the planned biathlon race. This could be exciting, we thought. How often do you get together some of the world’s best biathletes in a race of fitness? Well, we weren’t so lucky as to be allowed to participate. Since this weekend are our Olympic trials, the International Competition Committee (ICC) will meet tonight to discuss whether they will hold a time trial tomorrow or simply choose the team based on the two races that have already taken place. With the possibility that we might race tomorrow, we chose to save our energy reserves.