The March Madness continues...

The last couple weeks back at home in Caribou have been busy ones. The Junior Olympics were a great success last week. Unseasonably warm and sunny weather made for great spring skiing. There was a little worry about the snow holding but in the end there was no need.
JO's has lead us right into U.S. Biathlon Nationals. We started yesterday with the sprint race. Unfortunately we had our first night of above freezing temperatures going, which kept the trails from setting. This made for a slow and slushy race. I didn't perform how I would have liked yesterday. I let some mental obstacles get in the way of performing to my best ability. The skiing conditions were challenging and defiantly not my favorite. I know we have a lot more of it to come in the next week, so I am currently working on a new and better strategy for plowing through the slush.
Right now I am focused on the pursuit race tomorrow and mass start on Sunday. Thank heavens for second and third chances....

Aroostook's Youth

I have been home now for just short of a week, and I have been staying busy. In addition to getting out on skis myself I have been able to help many youth throughout Aroostook County get out and enjoy sliding across the snow on skis as well.
This past Saturday the Northern Skier Club hosted the Aroostook Youth Ski Festival at the high school trails here in Caribou. There had to have been well over 75 skiers from the ages of five to sixteen. We spent the morning hitting up one of the five different ski stations, doing everything from barrel chases to biathlon bean bag tosses to flying down the radar run and flipping tricks on the terrain park.
We finished off the morning with one enormous game of sharks and minnows. I let my competitive side get the best of me and caused two collisions in attempt to "swim" from the sharks closing in on me.
Many thanks out to everyone who helped put this event together. This is my third year attending. Each year I see more new faces having fun being active and playing around on skis! That is something I will never get tired of seeing.
Thanks again,
BethAnn

Post-Birkie

I made it! I finished my first ever 52km race and even walked away from the finish line all on my own! I was pretty excited about that. My first ever Birkie experience was a good one. I think I lucked out with beautiful sunny weather, fast skiing and great snow. I work hard to follow the only instructions I was given for the race; eat and drink early and often and ski in a pack!
I worked pretty hard the first few kilometers to stay with the front pack. After about six kilometers of that I started to get nervous that I was expending too much energy too early and would end up bonking. I really did not want to bonk. So I backed off a bit and ended up skiing with four other women who did the same as me. I felt pretty strong most of the race. I had a moment with about 18km to go where I thought I was going to hit a wall, but I worked through it and finished pretty strong. I maybe could have even picked it up a bit more towards the end, but again I was nervous I would start my surge to early and end up loosing time in the end.
I defiantly learned a lot throughout the race and feel that my second time around I can ski it even better. I'm happy with my eleventh place for now.
Cheers,
BethAnn

Birke Fever

2.26.2010

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me, fifty-two kilometers of racing in beautiful central Wisconsin. It will be my first time racing in the American Birkebeiner. Things seem to be lining up quite nicely going into tomorrow’s race. It’s going to be cold tonight but get up to the upper twenties by tomorrow sometime. The snow is great and the sun will be shining.
It sounds like there is going to be over 8,000 racers tomorrow. There will be a lot of eating and waxing of skis tonight.
We arrived here on Wednesday night and I have been enjoying taking in all the excitement of the events over the past few days. Yesterday afternoon David and I took part in the Elite sprints in downtown Hayward. Head to head sprints down main street with single elimination, made for a fun, spectator friendly event.
My afternoon schedule includes picking up my bib, wax some skis, stretch, eat and probably watch a little Olympics. The race starts bright and early at 8:30.
More to come after the race….
-BethAnn