World Cup Week 2

It seems all of a sudden that we are nearing the end of the first set of World Cup competitions. Slowly, we are letting this Wednesday afternoon pass as we prepare for our last 3 competitions in Poklujka, Slovenia. Tomorrow is the 15km Individual, Saturday the 7.5km Sprint and Sunday the 10km Pursuit.

Last week I had a fairly successful World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen, Austria. Friday in the Sprint, I finished 18^th with 1 penalty. There is ALWAYS something that an athlete is dissatisfied with or at least acknowledges the requirement for continued improvement. After my race, I was satisfied with many aspects of the race, and yet deeply frustrated that I had missed my very last shot! If only…

In the Pursuit, I did not have as much success. I shot 1,2,0,2 and finished 21^st. However, on the positive side, I did ski very well. Eventually, I believe the shooting and skiing will coincide!

Sunday was the relay competition and thankfully this week we were able to fill a team. The order was Megan Imrie, myself, Sandra Keith and anchor Megan Tandy. It was not terrible, but it was not a superb day either. We used an excruciatingly large number of spares, living way too close on the edge of having to do the loop of shame. Phew… none of us did. And we finish 13^th. Focus focus focus, for our next chance in Ruhpolding.

Besides our biathlon buzz, we socialized during our long multiple courses of dinner, ordered delicious cappuccinos and macchiatos, finished novels (I was reading The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields), did yoga directed by our MT Tracey, and spent long periods of time on skype… or at least I did! My wonderful parents, along with some fellow Kocher fans from Germany came to this World Cup and definitely helped me cruise up the final hill to the finish with their loud cheering!

Back to my next book… Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. (perspective… a bad race really is not a big deal!)

WC Week 1

(Liam and Tom Zidek)

Week 1 is finito!

Today we are travelling from Oestersund, Sweden to Hochfilzen, Austria. Before jumping on the bus to the airport, Megan and I did a quick shopping spree…I needed a few items to complete an outfit and well why not seize another opportunity to shop when in such a great shopping center as Oestersund! Our travel day did not start without some excitement the night before. Robin, the oldest veteran of the team, realized his passport was not in his possession. He had in fact, packed it with his bag and computer and sent it in the van driven by wax techs Rich and Tom, which had departed after the relays Sunday for the long drive to Austria. It must be noted that this was not a first occurrence for our well-travelled veteran. Ah… the idiosyncrasies of us all. And how much fun it is to viciously tease each other!

Last week we began the World Cup circuit with a 15km Individual competition. It did not end majestically for me but instead provided a stepping stone of encouragement for the future competitions. I had an excellent last lap time; however I started so slowly my coaches wondered if I had stopped for an afternoon tea break! I also set up camp in the shooting range and still could not hit the broad side of a barn. I ended up shooting 1,1,2,1 (Prone,Standing,P,S – 5 misses) with a final result of 56^th position. This was not the image I had envisioned! However, my teammate JP, had an fantastic race the following day, shooting 2 misses and finishing 10^th.

Saturday, my 27^th birthday, was the sprint competition. I set out on the course after having heard a “Happy Birthday song” over the loudspeakers, with a committed aggressive attitude, finishing slightly better than Thursday in 34^th place with 1,1. However, I am deeply unsatisfied and am determined to continue to fight for better finishes. Nevertheless, it being my birthday, I couldn’t help but smile at the end of the day with the satisfaction that I was doing something I love to do, and enjoy the evening with my biathlon family – teammates and support staff and a big Swedish princess cake. The day before my birthday I treated myself to some retail therapy and purchased a very fun pair of boots… although I am not a practiced high heel wearer and I feel incredibly tall and unbalanced! I also received a gorgeous rose for a certain special someone. ;)

Sunday was the relay competition. To our misfortune, 2 of our women fell sick (Megan Tandy and Sandra Keith) the day before and we were unable to fill a relay team. Instead, Megan Imrie and I trained, and then quickly fled to the Christmas market embracing Swedish culture and the lure of shopping for a few small Christmas gifts.

Besides, the blissful moments of cruising the Christmas decorated main street and Christmas market, we were continually entertained by our baby teammate, Liam, Anna Carin and Tom Zidek’s 1.5 year old son. His cheering and cute Swedish toque definitely helped mama to the podium in the Individual! We tried to teach him some bad tricks during the week, but instead, his favorite fixation was cheering his sippy cup with us at every meal.

Week 2 begins… in Hochfilzen, Austria this Friday. Do a snow dance… it’s looking very thin and sparse out the window!

(skiing on the 1A in Lake Louise)

During the end of October and November, we completed the final hard training preparation around the Canmore area. After our Dachstein camp, numerous days were first spent on a roller ski treadmill doing hard interval training. They were difficult, exhausting and exactly what we needed! By the beginning of November we were on snow, skiing on a very short loop at the Nordic Center; as well as, driving out to Lake Louise and Mt. Shark for longer ski sessions. Lake Louise had absolutely beautiful skiing on Moraine Lake road and the 1A as it was full on winter conditions. Rosanna and I spotted a bear 400 m away on the train tracks one day while skiing on the 1A. I guess he wasn’t ready to hibernate just quite yet!

The men’s team, weary of the 1km loop, departed for Silverstar beginning of November and had a wonderful 10-day camp with 60 km of ski trails available. Sounded pretty awesome… but I was happy to sleep in my own bed and enjoy my personal space before flying off to Europe for the start of a long World Cup season!

Last Saturday, I departed for Sweden. Yes, that time has come; it is the start of the racing season! As per usual, my personal assistant seemed to be absent and I had to pack all my equipment (massive ski bag with endless number of skis, few poles, 3 pairs of boots – 2 skate and 1 classic, running shoes, ammunition, a rifle, extra stock, sport drink, protein recovery drink…) and all my ski clothes, casual clothes and shoes, books, flute, yoga mat… and who knows what else… all by myself. Good thing I am a practiced packer. We flew from Calgary to Frankfurt then to Stockholm, and onwards in an eighteen-passenger plane to our final destination – Sveg, a tiny town in the middle of Sweden. However, any snow that may have been there had melted, so Monday morning we drove to an even smaller ski village called Bruksvallarna. There is a little downhill ski resort, a biathlon range, and lots and lots of cross-country trails here.

When I am in Europe, there are new foods that become my favorite snack. In Sweden and Norway, for instance, I love this type of cheese called geitost. It is strong, sweet and is strong with flavors of caramel and goat’s milk. Yum! Might just have to have some right now…

Our team is staying in 2 different log cabins on the downhill ski area. The women’s team, unfortunately, is the highest cabin partway up this downhill run (shaking my fist at the men’s team)… in fact it is not even accessible by vehicle. My coach got someone from the ski area with a skidoo and sled to haul our entire luggage up to our cabin! I really wish I had a sled because it would be a breeze to fly down the steep hill to breakfast, lunch and dinner! On the up side, it is a beautiful little cabin and each contains its own sauna… not a bad little retreat after all! (Sun would be nice though… my litebook is not giving me a tan!)

In less than a week, I will compete in my first World Cup of the season in Ostersund, Sweden. It will be a 15km Individual competition on Wednesday. Training and preparation for the season is complete and it is time to put our hard work to the test!

I am nervous, anxious, apprehensive… but ready and very excited! I can’t wait to see what is possible in the months ahead! … Therefore, I feel normal!

I will update you all very soon on the results of our first competition week. Of course, all information, results and live feed results can be found on www.biathlonworld.com

“No expectations, no limitations!”

September/October '09

(Haus Helvetia... our Ramsau home.)

100 days… are you serious? Olympic Winter Games my friends are closer and closer!

As is, the start of our World Cup season. In 2 weeks, I will be departing for Sweden to begin the 2009/2010 World Cup season! We get so immersed in our training that time really does seem to fly by.

Beginning of September we had our World Cup trials in Canmore. Thankfully JP and I were pre-selected and the races were purely for training practice. I won the sprint and pursuit, but finished 3^rd in the mass start competition. All I can say about the mass start, is that I am truly happy to be a winter athlete. It was incredibly hot that afternoon and I came down with heat stroke in the middle of the race. I cannot imagine training in hot climate! Unless… I was submerged in water.

In late September, JP and I attended the Summer Rollerski Biathlon World Championships in Oberhof, Germany. It was a very good training race experience as I was skiing very strong despite poor results in the shooting range. I placed 13^th in the sprint with 3 misses and 15^th in the pursuit with 5 misses (49 competitors). Although I did not feel thwarted by the weekend’s results, I do know there are aspects that I need to fine tune before the winter begins. So back to hard training…

From there we drove to Ramsau am Dachstein, Austria for a 2 ½ week ski camp. Ramsau is located approximately 1 hr drive south of Salzburg. It is a beautiful little country town tucked away in the Austrian Alps. Picture…green pastures with cows, horses, ponies and donkeys, quaint mountain houses with overflowing flower boxes, with big beautiful mountains as the backdrop. The Dachstein glacier was… well black. It wasn’t a pretty site. Fortunately, the groomers did a great job making a 7km loop dodging crevasses and the skiing was pretty good. Then it snowed and conditions improved significantly! Our last couple days there the weather turned nasty and the gondola had to shut down due to high speed wind and blizzard conditions. Disappointing because we couldn’t ski, but we did discover a cool hike with a high suspension bridge over a waterfall!

Highlight of our camp was discovering iMovie and the women team's attempt to put together a rad video. I can’t post it just yet… and don’t hold your breath. It wasn’t that exciting!

From Ramsau, we flew home… well not quite. Megan and I had a 3 day stopover in Kitchener, Ontario (just outside of Toronto). Rosanna flew in from Calgary to join us for a sponsorship/fundraising event. The event was hosted by The Gun Club of Cambridge and involved speaking engagements at 3 elementary schools and 2 colleges, a dinner night and a meet and greet day with the sponsors. We had a great time presenting our sport at the elementary schools and I hope the kids also enjoyed it, especially those that had the chance to try the laser shooting system! Hopefully we inspired and motivated another generation!

After a busy promotional weekend, it was time to head west for home...

“You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning within your own.” – Eleanor Doan

In May I thought…280 days… wow.

The significance? The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games!

Yes that is all. I suppose there will always seem like there is not enough time. That is why everyday is important. Everyday an opportunity! If each training session is accomplished with this attitude, then I will be ready!

I had an excellent break from biathlon in the tropical islands of Maui and Kauai during April. Soaked in the sunrays, surfed (or tried!), swam, snorkeled, and fully embraced beach life!

By the end of April I was back on snow in Whistler at the Olympic venue in Callahan Valley. We had absolutely beautiful sunny days with amazing ski conditions. It was a great start to the training season. Then before I flew home, I spent 3 days in Vancouver at the Olympic Excellence Series, a conference run by the Canadian Olympic Committee for Olympic and potential Olympic athletes from each sport, and the coaches/support staff. It was an excellent weekend filled with inspiriting stories from Ray Zhab, Johann Koss, Sylvie Frechett, Adam van Koeverden and great workshops. I left feeling refreshed, inspired, motivated, and determined. I dream that one day, I too have an amazing story to tell that will capture the next generation of young people to believe!

Later in June I learnt…

Inspiration can come in so many packages. In June during a rest week, I drove to my hometown, Red Deer, and spoke to grades 1-5 at my old elementary school (Ecole Mountview Elementary School). The kids loved my biathlon simulation exercise, (we “raced” a 7.5km sprint race), and my Olympic story. And I loved their sound effects, their excitement, and numerous questions. I was inspiring them, but they were motivating me and driving my passion! The 4 hrs I spent at the school literally flew by! I left feeling as though I had consumed 20 cups of coffee!

In July, Canmore had some wonderfully hot summer days. I made sure to tick off the list of usual fav summer activities: licking ice cream, fruit smoothies, barbeques, dinning al fresco, swimming, sunbathing, and even some rock climbing at the local crags. The annual Canmore Folk Fest in August was another great relaxing summer highlight.

Training has been awesome this year. Besides the usual intervals, strength and roller ski workouts at the Nordic Center, we have also been up to Highwood Pass a lot for long roller ski sessions. Highwood Pass is a long gradual climb in Kananaskis where we often spot grizzly bears during the month of June… an exciting experience when you are moving so slowly uphill on skis! (yes we do all ski with bear spray and pray that that bear is more interested in the berry bushes than a skinny skier…) We had a fun bike and roller skiing camp in British Columbia in June. Definitely had a chance to work on excellent short tan lines. Highlight included Scott wearing his bike shorts up to his butt in order to fix his tan lines… this only made him look like he was wearing a diaper while riding! In July we headed to Whistler for 2 weeks and did solid training up in Callaghan. Highlight was a team building session involving drums and lots of them! We made some amazing rhythms as a team. Well that may be arguable! August was spent training in Canmore, with an emphasis on field tests and preparation to our World Cup trials in September. I got away from small town life and biathlon for a few days to Vancouver in early August. Definitely needed and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! Stopped in Summerland for a swim and it felt like I’d flown way south as it was 35 degrees. So glorious!

As the summer has officially come to an end, the temperature dropping, and the leaves changing, I am reminded of the immediacy of the World Cup season, and more importantly the Olympic Games.

Therefore…

“The only thing that relieves pressure is preparation.” – Tom Kite

(crowds in Khanty-Mansiysk and along the river in Trondheim)

Whistler World Cup, the test competition for Olympic Winter Games, was the next set of races after World Champs. It was a pretty nice experience for us Canmorons, taking a 1 hr flight, instead of a 9hr to the competition venue! Our team stayed right in the Whistler Village, as did the French and Norwegians. Conditions were good, the venue ready, but definitely it was missing the atmosphere of large crowds in the stadium and along the tracks that many European World Cups encompass. I should hope that at the Olympic games there is a full house!

In terms of results, not a good week for me… I ended up 49^th in the individual (15km) and 48^th in the sprint (7.5km). Our team finished 9^th in the relay. Despite the substandard results, it was a good experience for getting used to the course and area prior to Olympics, and was awesome to have some great friends on the sidelines for support.

That Sunday we flew to Norway. The Trondheim World Cup was next. I had never been to Trondheim before, very exciting, as often the circuit is predictable and repetitive! (Which of course is great for the fans, and also we as competitors get to know the track very well.) Trondheim is a beautiful city located in central Norway where the river Nid flows into the Trondheim fjord. It was lovely to walk or run alongside the river. I had a good sprint shooting 9/10 and placing 20^th but a rough day in the pursuit finishing 47^th.

Monday we were on the move again, this time to Russia, with all teams taking the 5hr charter flights from Trondheim to Khanty-Mansiysk. A usual on the World Cup circuit, always ending with a great finishing party! I placed 24^th in the sprint and 33^rd in the pursuit. Saturday being my last competition, I watched the mass start competitions on Sunday and then intently focused my energy on dancing all night. The World Cup season was over! Maybe not the results I was aspiring for, but it was an improvement from my mono year!

A night of dancing, laughing and good times came to an end, a couple hrs of sleep, and 6am we were back on a charter to return to Munich. Then back to Canada for holiday time!!

Do not despair, I have not been swallowed by snow demons. I did attend World Championships, and then Whistler, Trondheim and Khanty-Manyisk World Cups. Life seemed to have consumed me and blogs forgotten about. Much apologies!

2009 Pyeongchang World Championships, (South Korea), were a good experience. Pyeongchang is a county in Gangwon province, in the Taebaek Mountains region and about 180km east of Seoul. Everyone, as in athletes, coaches, support staff of all the Nations stayed at a huge apartment building called Green Pia, located right at the base of the YongPyong Ski Resort. This is very different from other World Championships and World Cups because teams are usually scattered in different hotels with maybe 1 or 2 other teams. So it created an athlete atmosphere similar (yet on a much smaller scale!) to that of Olympic Games.

Our competition venue was a short 10 min drive away. Pyeongchang lost bids for 2010 and 2014 Olympics but they are bidding again for 2018. Because of this, they have a World Class biathlon facility, and a Cross Country facility and ski jumping (still in building phase) all in the same area.

Right before the competitions began a number of misfortunes arose. One being a terrible rainstorm destroying the fairly thick layer of manmade snow. The day before the sprint, no one was allowed to ski on the icy remains besides 400m around the stadium. Most athletes chose to go for a run in the rain and dry-fire in the athlete room (as we were also unable to shoot). In Korea, all of our rifles stayed in a locked room at the venue when not in use; therefore, there was a specific room on site for athletes to practice dry shooting. I don't think I have ever been in such a busy dry-fire room with the chaotic noise of click, click, click!

I did not have the results I was hoping for finishing 30th in the Sprint, 24th in the Pursuit and 35th in the Individual. However, we had a good relay placing 9th. The stadium is plagued by a lot of wind gusts and therefore, many athletes (unfortunately including myself) had difficulties in shooting... but really, one cannot have excuses in biathlon. Biathletes have to be able to master difficult conditions in order to succeed!

Leaving Seoul, our team took the opportunity to do a half day tour in Seoul. We visited a beautiful Buddhist temple and museum, a market street, enjoyed a traditional Korea meal... kimchi anyone?, saw a sea of identical high rise apartment buildings, highways with 10 lanes across, crazy candy makers and many other aspects of daily Korean life. The food was definitely an experience, but being adventurous I tried it all. (and yep... still not a fan of kimchi!)

Then we took a long flight back home to Calgary....

After a little over a week in Canmore it was off to Whistler for World Cup #7...