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?

Spring time?

While the trees are blooming are flowers are blossoming most place in the Northern Hemisphere this time of year, Northern Maine is still feeling pretty chilly. The last two mornings I woke up to my thermometer reading 38F. Brr, is all I have to say to that.
The cold, wet weather didn't keep fourteen of us from peddling up and down the hills of Northern Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec this past Saturday during Fresh Trails Adventures season kick off F.A.R.M. Ride, (French Acadian Randonee of Maine). Randonee rides are often done throughout central Europe. One day group rides with a mix of paved and well packed dirt roads, Randonnee rides are most often have support vehicles providing food and drink stops and gear support. These rides are meant to be an enjoyable day of riding, often exploring new routes. Fresh Trails choose some beautiful and challenging roads throughout New Brusnwick and Quebec for the bike tour companies the first offered Randonee.

After the initial struggle of getting out of bed, putting on my many layers of bike clothing and heading out the door, things were quite enjoyable throughout the day. We broke up our 80 mile ride with an amazing lunch at the Auberge La Dulce Vite in Nortre Dame du Lac in Quebec. After fulling back up and throwing on a few dry cloths we all jumped back on our bikes to make our way back towards Fort Kent, where we started and finished the ride for the day. In the end we only peddled in the rain for short while in the morning and briefly just after lunch. I was pleasantly warm throughout the entire ride and thanks to our two great support vehicles was never ran out of water or food for the entire ride. Spirits were high throughout the entire day and in the end I believe everyone was quite happy with themselves for crawling out of bed and forcing themselves outside on a dearly Saturday morning. Upon departing for the day we were all looking forward to putting our legs up and putting our new Fresh Trails pint glass, (everyone got one in their goodie bag!) to use. Well deserved on all counts.

Thanks to all of those who joined in on the fun. I am glad you were all there to get me out their in the first place. Wouldn't have wanted to miss out on any of it.
cheers, BA

Run around

7:00 am run Saturday morning. Ran out to the beaver pond a few miles away, checking out what the busy beavers have been up to since my last visit this past fall. The rain is holding off for the time being. Glad to get at least one workout in before it starts to fall again.
First time trying out the new GU Chomps. Testing out the blueberry pomegranate today. They are great to take with on a long workout because it's easy to just eat one or two at a time and not overload your stomach. Did I mention how delicious they are as well? Just like my favorite fruit snacks, only loaded with electrolytes and all that good stuff.

Fresh start

May has arrived and a new training season has officially begun. I feel more refreshed and excited for this new start having just come off of an amazing vacation to St. Croix for eight days. I found the warm waters of the Caribbean to be more therapeutic then I imagined, not to mention inspiring and a bit scary at time! (We had a brief close encounter with a eight foot long bull shark while snorkeling one day). While it was hard to leave the beautiful beaches and palm trees, it feels good to be back to the fresh, crisp air of Maine.
Being home again and looking at the year ahead, I am feeling good about my perspective on training and my overall biathlon career. The closing of this past season brought on a great deal of reflection and left me with a more concrete idea of my goals are, why I am want to continue racing and how I will proceed in reaching these goals.
Here is my best attempt at summarizing the answers to these questions as best I can: World Cups races, World Championship and a National title are all on my list of things I wish to accomplish in the year ahead. While these are challenging goals, they are ones I know I can accomplish. They represent a good part of my result orientated goals for the year. Competing as an athlete full time has helped me to learn so much about myself, given me life experience I can’t imagine I would have had otherwise. It has allowed me to spend much of my time doing things I love. This career has also put me in a unique position to help others learn and experience some of the many benefits Nordic skiing and other great physical activities provides. All these reasons contribute to my dedication to continuing my biathlon career.

Having competed as an athlete for many years with many of the same goals, I want to approach this year and the rest of my career in a way that I know I am moving forward and avoid the feeling of beating my head against the wall by making the same mistakes year after year or race after race. Having a solid idea of what my goals are and having a training plan set out to help me reach them is the first step in moving forward. Keeping in touch with the joy of sport and having fun in what I do is another important piece that will help me succeed in what I am doing. Balancing these two tasks and with the rest of my life is a great challenge but one that will allow me to achieve all that I set my mind to. After taking a great deal of time and energy working these thoughts and ideas out, I am ready to start acting on them. Great success, impact and happiness starts now.
Cheers,
BethAnn

New Adventures for a worn out shoe

Earth day is just around the corner, April 22nd. I love that this day falls in the spring since that is often when I am cleaning out all the worn out or otherwise useless items I collected over the year. And living in a 650 square foot space does not leave a lot of room for items that serve no purpose.

As an athlete, there is no getting around all the gear that goes along with training and racing all year. It also means I go through a great deal of running shoes and other equipment during my many hours of training. As much as I love having a pile of muddy, most often smelly, shoes taking up more space that I don't have, I have found a much better home for my old beaten up foot ware. Nike's Reuse a Shoe program is one of the best programs I have found. They take any sport shoe that doesn't have metal on it, (sorry, no cleats allowed). Don't worry about the brand, they will take anything. Check out the link below and look up the closest drop off point. They are often found at Nike stores. Throw all your shoes in bag and drop them off at the store. They will then be broken down and used to help make new track surfaces, tennis courts, playground flooring or even new Nike products. It sure beats throwing them all into the land fill.


http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/where-it-goes/recycling-processashoe.com/

A seasons end

Another racing season has come to an end. They always seem to go by so quickly. I now find myself back in Caribou catching up on projects I have been putting off since last spring.
A a winter athlete, the spring time is a great time to relax a bit and let your body rest. I find this harder than it probably should be. The spring is also the perfect time to look back on the past training and racing season and do a good evaluation. What was good, what wasn't, did you reach your goals, if so why not; the questions seem endless. I also find many of these questions and other like them to be quite challenging to answer honestly.
Quite frankly, I didn't reach many of the goals I set out for myself this past season. Why did I come up short? I think there are a number of factors. And I am still sorting through them all. I will say balancing things in my life better will help me become better at everything I do. At this point in the game, it doesn't do me much good to beat myself up about any of my short comings this past season. What I can do is learn from this year and make the necessary changes to make sure I reach my goals in the year ahead. I still have a great deal of number crunching, brain storming and evaluating to do to make sure I start the 2011-12 season off right. But for now I am going to give my body and mind a little longer break from all that.
Spring, summer, Fall and of course winter; it's all been busy and filled with adventure after adventure. The good, bad and the ugly all made their own appearances. I am now working on my plan to keep the bad and ugly out of the game in the year ahead. Wish me luck.

cheers, BethAnn