Testing week

Last week was a busy one. Starting on Wednesday we had a five day team testing and orientation. Our tests included a 3000 meter run, (ouch), followed by a 400 meter run, (OUCH!), strength endurance/max testing and a VO2 Max test ski walking on the treadmill at UMPI. The orientation included everything from team protocol to team building, talks on nutrition, (thank you Dr. Glazer), sports psych, (thank you Sarah Kay), team and individual goals, training techniques and even a little relaxation and yoga practice. We through it all into five days. And we even finished off the week with a 5km fun run at the S.W. Collins 5km here in Caribou.
While these days were quite long, I found them to be very productive and really set the tone to something great for this team and the year ahead. All the athlete, biatletes and Nordic, did everything together, which hasn't ever really happened in the past. I am excited to see this cohesion develop further as our season rolls forward through the colder months.
One of the activities I found to be the most rewarding was talking about goals, short term, long term, performance and outcome. We came up with a great list for our entire team and along with everyone workout out their own personal goals as well. Some of us shared a few with the group while other kept more to them self. It is a hard thing to do, sharing a goal with a bunch of your peers. We are all teammates but in our sports we are also competitors. You are putting yourself out there by stating what your aspirations are. The harder the goal the greater the challenge in reaching it, and the tougher it is to state that goal out loud. This is something I have often struggled with in the past. After competing for nearly 15 year in this sport I understand that I need to state my goals out loud and let everyone know what it is I am working towards, at the risk of being judged, laughed at or who knows what else. I have to do this to help myself start believing and knowing I can accomplish these things. And really who is anyone else to make any judgement on what I can or can't accomplish in sport or life. It's all up to me in the end. I am the only person who can get in my own way of reaching those goals that I set out for myself. And I am doing to do my very best to stay out of the way!

World Championship Team 2012, here I come!

cheers, BA

photos from the VO2Max test at Univeristy of Maine in Presque Isle. Thanks to Sue Beaudet for helping out with this. This pictures pretty much sums it up, a very blurry experience...

Training period 2 recap

Keeping up to date with my blog updates hasn't been a strong suit of mine lately. This is not to say I haven't thought about all kinds of different activities and adventures I could post about. Instead of trying to sum up the last couple weeks in words, I'll do my best to do so in pictures.
Things started off pretty chilly. This sight was not a motivating one before a fairly uncomfortable track workout.
Cool, wet weather seemed to be the weather pattern we have been following for the past couple weeks here. We had a wet but productive trail clean up day at NHC a few weeks back.

...with a few nice days mixed in-between rain and thunderstorms

A week of training in Lake Placid proved to be my most productive training week yet. Accompanied by nicer weather and a few extra people to play around with on the range here and there made for a great week. Here's a view from White Face Mountain




A night of Sushi making may have been the highlight!




Back here in Northern Maine training has been going well. This past week was a little lighter on the training to allow our bodies to rest up a bit for the week of testing we have coming up. Our MWSC Elite Team orientation begins on Wednesday. We are kicking it off with a 3000 meter run. I'm looking forward to having everyone together again and really jump start our training group.
One last image from this past week is a shot of my juice making experiment. After acquiring a beautiful, industrial strength juicer I was excited to tested it out I was pleasantly surprised to find rhubarb juice pretty darn good. Who would have thought! Many other concoctions were made as well, some turning out better than others. I think I have a bit of refining yet to do.


cheers, BethAnn

Help support children with diabetes

On July 16th and 17th I will be putting my rollerskis and rifle away for a couple days. My training on these days will all be done on my bike. I am going to ride in the first annual Ride Aroostook event. It is an event to fundraise to help children with diabetes. You can show your support by either 1. donating to my ride at the link above or 2. Join in on the ride! www.ridearoostook.com. The more the merrier so don't hesitate.
Happy riding,
BA

Training camps

Who doesn't enjoy a good training camp? I am here in Lake Placid, New York for my first training camp of the year. It is a short one, only lasting a week, but I am excited to be here and to take full advantage of all that my first camp of the year has to offer.
While all us endurance athletes train a great deal at home though our training season, training camps offer a special time to ramp up our focus and really put all our energy into training. It also offers a great chance to train with a bigger or perhaps different group of athletes, train in a different setting and have more time to work with coaches on the smaller details of our sport.
Here at the Olympic Training Center, (OTC), it is especially nice since we have a full dinning hall where we can eat all our meals and a sports medical office where we can stop by and stretch, jump in the ice bath or get help with any other ache or pain that may come up. Overall it is a nice place to be.
I am most excited about have a week of having to focus on not much more than my training. While I do miss digging around in my garden this time of year it is really great to leave everything behind for a short while and zero in on accomplishing my goals as a biathlete.
So far things have been going great. The weather is starting to listen to my requests for dry, sunny weather. And after only two days I feel my shooting is on a great upswing that I plan extending all the way through the 2011-12 racing season. In addition to the great company of my MWSC teammate and coach it's also a lot of fun to do a little training with the National team and National team coaches as well.
As I said before, who doesn't love a training camp?