A chilly start

  After nearly three weeks into my time here in West Yellowstone, I finally had the opportunity to race, with my rifle!  Today was the first day of the North American Cup #2, here in West Yellowstone,  MT.  I have already had nearly three weeks of skiing in here, which has been awesome.  I also have been able to do two Nordic sprint qualifier races and a five kilometer skate Nordic race,  all o f which went well and I am happy to have been able to do.  But today I was very happy to be starting a race with a rifle on my back.

After feeling pretty crummy yesterday and taking the day off, I was a little worried I would be full on sick today, but was happy to wake up feeling much better and was ready to race.

Looking out the window as I woke up, there was a heavy fog sitting low in the sky.  My initial thought was that it had warmed up a bit, believing the fog meant warmer weather.  This silly assumption of mine was simply not true.  It was about -7 F out around 7:30 and didn't feel like it warmed up much in the next two hours.   Our start was at 10:00, which was when the sun just started to creep over the trees and hit a few open spots on the range and race course.  While the little pockets of sunlight were nice, it was still COLD!  I find it harder to warm your body up in the cold,  making the maximum race output you're working towards a little harder to reach, but it is doable.  Shooting with a numb trigger finger on the other hand,  is much harder to deal with.   I was bummed to have come into shoot prone with my trigger finger feeling like a frozen Popsicle.  Going on faith that my trigger finger knew what it was doing, I got through my prone stage with two misses.  That made for two more misses then I had hoped, but such is life and I still had two more loops to ski, along with my standing stage.  Thankfully after a bit more skiing my hand came around and warmed up.  I took my time with standing and hit all but one target.  Overall an okay day on the range and not a bad start to the season.  

Upon my finish I was finally starting to feel the warmth from the sun.  During my cool down it was starting to feel like a whole different day outside.   In the end my three misses and skiiing speed added up to a win for the day, which always feels nice!

Happy to have one race this winter in my belt, I am now putting my focus and energy into the International Biathlon Cup trials series that will be held at Mount Itasca in Minnesota next week.  There is one more race here in West tomorrow, but after looking at my schedule I have decided to sit this one out and prepare for Minnesota.   Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Bozeman to catch an early flight Monday morning to good ol' MSP!  Looking forward to spending a little time in my home state and to have some awesome races there as well!  Let's just hope the cold doesn't follow us there. 

cheers, 

shooting prone

Our cheering squad in Bozeman last weekend at the Bohart Supertour

Checking out the Icebreaker Merino Wool wear to keep me warm at the local ski shop

Coach "K" dressing for the job and staying warm! 

BethAnn

Snow update

A week into snow skiing and I couldn't be more happy.  Not to mention feeling pretty fortunate about being in a place where there is enough snow to ski on.  That is defiantly not the case in a lot of places right now. 

I had a great week of skiing last week, focusing mostly on getting hours in on snow.  Jumping into the sprint qualifier on Wednesday was a nice treat, but quickly there after went back to building up my hours.  I was happy with how I felt through the week, handling the high volume better than I anticipated.  Now going into week two on snow I am looking to get geared up for a little more intensity and a lot more shooting!  I was also planning to race in the Supertour races this coming weekend in Bozeman but it seems that old man winter hasn't yet arrived there, or showed up for a while but has since left in the last week or so.  High temperatures are looking to be well into the 40s with little snow on the ground currently.  Needless to say, things aren't looking good for the races.  There are a lot of different rumors going around; the possibility of shortening the races, holding them up higher at the venue in Bozeman, moving them back here to West or just even canceling them.  No matter what you may or may not believe right now, truth is none of us will really know until Wednesday evening when the official call will be made.  While I have been really looking forward to racing in the large and competitive fields that these races would be sure to offer, I also know that staying here in West, where the skiing is great, and doing a biathlon time trial wouldn't be a bad option either.  

Wishing you all a snowy week!

cheers, BethAnn

 

I was impressed with the number of kids and adults who participated in a novice biathlon race last week.  I helped out on the range and was excited to see not only huge numbers there but also a lot excitement in all the racers. 

I was very happy to be back in the same state as my husband David for the week.  While working hard with Boulder Nordic Sport, he also found a little time to jump into the classic race last Sunday!

The very familiar and welcoming sign at the start of the trails here in West Yellowstone.

There have been a lot of great upgrades to the range here. Things are looking good. 

West

There may be no better feeling then skiing on good snow for the first time of a new season.  And  there is definitely  great skiing here in West Yellowstone right now.  I am happy to be out here along with, what feels like, half of the Nordic skiers from the entire country.  The skiing is great and trails are awesome.  The weather has been great so far, although there are some very black clouds in the sky right now, but I am hoping only more snow will come from it.

This week is the big ski festival out here.  The Supertour races started on Wednesday with a little sprint qualifier.  It was more than your average sprint course, but it was only a qualifier.  This means you only had to ski it once,  so it made for a quick race.  There were both classic and skate races and most people did both.  I decided to jump in the race but opted for just the skate portion.  

I was excited to put a bib on for the first time this season.  I was pretty happy with my end result of 15th place.  It was a very competitive field and I feel I made a solid effort out there.  I had enough fun to make me consider doing another couple Nordic races next week in Bozeman.  After that however, it is all biathlon!  My poor rifle is starting to feel left out.  

It's time to run out the door and get my workout started for the morning.  More updates to come.  

cheers, 

BethAnn

A good day

End of October and into November can often bring less then ideal weather for biathlon training.  Mid thirties and rain is what I often anticipate.  And if you haven't ever done it yourself, take my word for it, lying down on a cold, soaking wet mat to shoot is not the most enjoyable activity.  But it comes with the territory of being a biathlete.  The fewer days like that the better, in my book.


Today was not one of those days.  Today was beautiful, mid-thirties, sunny day.  Oh what a difference a little sun can do.  We had a short time trial up in Fort Kent and I was ever so happy to remember what it feels like to ski hard while at sea level.  It's so easy, or at least it feels that way right now.  Tie all that in with one of my best days on the shooting range and you have yourself a great day!  Even with a little tricky wind, I was in and out of the range fairly quickly and had four good shooting stages.
Things are looking up.  Snow is in the forecast and targets are falling down.

Here's to the many more good days ahead of us.
-cheers, BethAnn

Here are a few additional photos of the range at Nordic Heritage.  Someone did an amazing job repaving the firing line at the range and even taking out a sketchy bump on the rollerloop.  Many thanks to whoever you are!

Never a dull moment

And I am back, in the East again .  After a great time in the mid-west with my family followed by an awesome training camp in Utah, I finally made it back to Maine.  Unfortunately I left my husband out West, but more on that later.
Upon my arrival  back to Caribou I was happy to find my house still standing, while most of my garden looked to be good and dead, with the exception of my kale and carrots.  You've got to love those hardy veggies.
So I am back in Caribou after a long trip. The last week of the camp had two time trials built into it.  I will be honest, rollerski time trials are not my favorite, especially when they are trials races, but I did my best to make the best of it.  Soldier Hollow is always sure to make you hurt, and these races were no exceptions to that.  I was feeling a little sore and sluggish the first day but happily worked most of that out and felt looser and more free on the second race day.  My shooting was about middle of the road during both days.  I put a little extra time in the range on a stage or two, determined to hit my last shot every time.  While it took me a while, I did it.  So after a little evaluating I feel fairly happy about a few things I had set out to work on: skiing relaxed, racing my own race and keeping focused in the range.  My ski speed wasn't quite what I wanted, nor was my shooting time.  It was a good checking point and has left me with a very clear focus for the up coming weeks.
I can finally say I am reaching the home stretch of rollerskiing for the year!  I don't mean to imply that I hate rollerskiing, but honestly, it's just not skiing!  And most of the time you do it on a road, have to wear a helmet and it hurts a whole lot more when you fall, not to mention rocks, cracks that need to be avoided  and POLE TIPS SLIPPING!  Glad to get that out of my system. :)
The good news is snow is on the way!  Or I at least know I will be going to seek it out myself!  After watching the weather right today, I can honestly say I wish I were in Boulder, CO with my husband right now.  I am pretty sure he is out skiing somewhere, which is why I haven't heard from him all afternoon and evening.
I will be toughening it out here with a few more weeks of dry land training here before heading to West Yellowstone and start skiing!  I also heard some unexpected good news the other day.  It sounds like MWSC and Big Rock are going to be making at least a 1km loop of snow to ski on as soon as the weather gets cold enough.  So there is a chance I will be on skis before West.  Here is too hoping.
Until then I'm going to hammer out a good intensity block over the next week and a half or so, taking advantage of all those extra red blood cells my body worked so hard to make while living at 7200 feet in Park City over the past three weeks.  Tomorrow it begins with a "bounding in the bog" workout with the X-C crew.  Leave it to Will to think that bog bounding in 35F degree weather to be a fun time.  At least I won't be the only one.
I'll post a full report tomorrow, along with an update of the new pavement at NHC!

cheers, BethAnn

Fast and Female

One of the many cool things that I have been able to do while at our Utah training camp is participate in a Fast and Female events at the USST's Center of Excellence here in Park City. Fast and Female is an organization started by 2006 Gold medalist, Chandra Crawford. It is aimed at empowering girls through sport, using world-class athletes as ambassadors and role models to inspire girls from the age of 9-19 to challenge themselves through sport, life and healthy living.
This past Saturday afternoon I had a blast running around the gym with a bunch of girls psyched about sport. We had athletes from Nordic, biathlon, aerials, moguls, speed skating, snowboard cross, half pipe and alpine. In a nut shell it was awesome.
Here are a few photos from the event!
cheers, BA

altitude

So far so good. Utah has been treating us well for the last few days. We are about four days into our training camp here in Park City Utah. We are actually staying up in Deer Valley, which is beautiful and also pretty high in elevation, at least by my standards. But I seem to be acclimating fairly well. We are doing a good amount of morning tests to monitor how our bodies are handling the additional stress of living and training between 7200 and 10,000 feet, (our hike two days ago followed a ridge line that was just about 10,000 ft.). Morning heart rate, lactate, glucose, and O2 saturation levels all measured before breakfast keeps us on top of training well for where our bodies are at.
After our first few days of mostly volume training and a little strength, we are taking it easy today before jumping into more intensity in the days to follow. Our shooting has been on hold due to a Civil War reenactment going on at Soldier Hollow the last few days. I wonder what biathlon would be like using some of rifles from there era?

I am off to lunch with two great friends and then putting in some time in the kitchen baking some bread and making my first attempt at cooking up some pork chili verde, all while watching a little football. I do enjoy off days while at training camps . :)


Cheers, BA



A quick trip to Ogden and the Atomic factory to pick up my new skis for the year. A few changes to the ski and some fancy new graphics have left me more excited than ever to get on snow and try them out!

One of the many gourgous views on our hike from the Canyon to Guardsman pass on day two.

Hello!

Taking advantage of the free public transit in Park City. Fun urban classic ski starting around the Canyons and working our way back up to Deer Valley.

A close moose encounter while on my morning jog just outside of our condo.