Finally Updating...

Ok, finally giving you an update!
We've had an exhausting few days here in Czech. Saturday was the first race of the Youth world championships here in Nove Mesto. I had a mediocre race. I have very mixed feelings on the results of the race. I was happy with my skiing. I definitely am skiing faster than last year, and I even managed to pass some people. I was able to hold off a Polish skier trying to catch me for the whole race.
On the other hand my shooting was sub-par for me. I had 3 penalties on the day, with some minor troubles in the range. I ejected a live round on the standing stage, which definitely took up some valuable time.
I ended up in 62nd, just 23 seconds out of the pursuit. Definitely made my disappointing shooting, even more disappointing.
I spectated on pursuit day, and cheered for my teammates. Today I relaxed and trained, getting ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the individual, a race that suits a better shot. Hopefully I can put my shooting together. I'll let you know how it goes. Cheers.

So tired...

Sorry that I haven't updated in a while. The last few days have been really busy, and I've had to focus on racing. Today was the sprint and I will tell you all about it...tomorrow. I am so exhausted right now there is a high probability of me falling asleep mid-sentence. I promise that tomorrow I will update you completely on the events of the last few days, but for now, goodnight.

Officially done being officially unofficial

Today was the last day of official unofficial training. Tomorrow is an official training day, and it is the last training day before we start competing. Opening ceremonies were tonight after a day of light training and lounging.
Opening ceremonies went well. Very short and sweet, followed by some pretty epic fireworks. It's not too cold, so we couldn't be too upset about having to stand outside. The international cheer is definitely going around, with the Netherlands team starting a snow ball fight between all the countries while we waited to start the parade of nations. Gotta say, the dutch athletes have quite the arm. Poor Sweden was running late, and got pummeled as they tried to cross the parking lot to find their place in the parade. It was an all around good time.
Ok, I don't want to write too much, I'd like to leave you with a bunch of pictures that I took today, as well as some ski factory pictures.

It's Germany, they don't label their coats. You're just supposed to know who they are.

I bet you really want to know what name is under the pack. It's Mongolia. That's right, there's a Mongolian biathlon team.

Country lists, so you know who's here.

Yeah, the sponsor is a brewer.What are you going to do about it?

Pretty...

Very pretty...

I want them all...and I don't even downhill ski...

Holy Holographic Skis Batman!

If I had to pick one word to describe the ski conditions on the trails this morning, I would choose soft. The trails felt more like they were covered in quick sand than snow. This morning's interval workout was a beast, and by the time we got back to the house all I wanted to do was sleep. I managed to drag myself down to lunch where we had yet another (delicious) traditional Czech meal. This time it was dumplings filled with fruit. They were so filling that we all immediately fell into a food coma.

The only thing that could get us back on our feet? The opportunity to go see a ski factory! We got to tour the Sporten ski factory. It was so cool, we got to see how skis go from a piece of wood to a ski, or in some cases a fiberglass mold to a ski. We also got to all the different designs they put on their skis over here. For only $5 you can personalize your skis! You can have your picture and name put on them! They look so unique. There were also holographic skis! I have decided that N. American nordic skis are really boring.

After our ski factory adventure Tara and I crashed for a while before jogging into town in search of coffee and pastries. We found amazing cappuccinos and Czech goodies, then headed back to the house where we have been just chilling ever since.

Tomorrow is the start of official unofficial training,which means time to get my rifle through media control. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that my rifle passes!


P.S. I'll put up photos of the ski factory later, since I still have to steal them from one of the boys cameras.

And nothing interesting happened that day...

...seriously. I mean, I guess the dessert was pretty darned exciting. Crepes with ice cream and whipped cream? That would be pretty freakin exciting if I weren't lactose intolerant. Other than that I skied, which was fun.
For those of you who are really really cold in North America....it's pretty toasty over here. I'm enjoying that. It's been snowing, which is a pretty big deal, you know, since we do a winter sport...
Oh yeah, legitimately exciting news, our masseuse/physical therapist/all around awesome person Camilla has arrived. Yay! Now we can go get massages! Wooo!
..and yeah. That's about it...

Calculus wins....

<-- A look at the coaches box behind the range here in Nove Mesto. Not nearly as full as it will be when all the teams arrive!

Sorry I haven't been posting for the last few days. When it comes down to calculus vs. blog post calc wins. I'm not THAT good of a biathlete, I need to get through college. Since I'm done calc for the moment here's an update!

Sunday: I raced for the first time on Sunday in the second Czech cup race of the weekend. It was a good warm up race, I noticed a few things that needed work, and now I can make sure I'm tuned up for the upcoming races. The rest of sunday was off, and we all had a nice rest.

Monday: Monday was a long rest day. We had no workouts, and in the morning we got to go into town and wander through some shops. By wander through some shops I mean go OMGSHOE-ing.
(OMGSHOE: Verb. To walk around shoe stores going "OMG SHOES!")
I think it was a well spent morning and I found a pair of sneakers for roughly $10 american. We also stopped by an amazing bakery for some pastries, before we headed back to the house. At the house we had a really tasty lunch. We had a traditional Czech meal, which was garlic soup, followed by pork with sauerkraut, bread dumplings, and potato dumplings. In the afternoon we sat around doing...nothing. Absolutely nothing (except calculus...and a short run). It was awesome, I love lazy days.

I'll try to update later about whats happening today, but so far its looking like a fairly uneventful day here. Just some typical training!

Lessons from the Czech Republic

1. We are a little challenged in the directions department
   
2. Czech children are adorable
   
3. Not speaking Czech is highly inconvenient
   
4. If you're ever in Nove Mesto, try the apple turnovers
   
5. Hold onto your clips!
   
6. The other teams are out to get you...just kidding...but not really...
   

So lessons learned from todays adentures...first off. As a group Tara, Carly, Ray, Sean, and I don't have the best sense of direction. In our defence Nove Mesto is not the simplest of places to get around, in fact, it's damn near impossible if you don't speak Czech (see point c). We were on a mission to find a bakery we had seen on all our trips to the range. We must have gone in 6 different (wrong) directions before someone noticed a familiar landmark and we headed in the right direction. The bright side to this adventure is, we got to see a lot of cool stuff we probably would not have otherwise seen. We did eventually find the bakery (it was closed) and we will definitely be going back there.

Did I mention that Czech children are adorable? Today while we were jogging (and by jogging I clearly mean walking) we kept passing people, and kept being passed by people in cars. Everyone just stared at us continuously. It was as if we were from another planet. Admittedly when you are dressed head to toe in USA team gear, you don't blend in, but this was as if we had a neon sign about our heads that said "foreigner!" We were honked at by numerous cars as they passed us, and we would watch people stare as they passed. The children were my favourites. They would make no effort to look like they weren't staring, their jaws would just drop. At one point a boy, probably about 12, passed us and turned and yelled "I love you!" as he passed. I'm fairly sure that was almost all the English he knew. We all immediately started giggling, and I turn around to wave to him. I wish we had something American to give him, even a little flag. I know when I was little that I would have been super pumped if someone had given me something.

As I mentioned earlier, not speaking Czech is highly inconvenient. Carly has a nut allergy and she carries around a slip of paper that says "I'm allergic to nuts" in Czech. She gave it to the cashier in the market in an attempt to find out if the treat she was buying had nuts in it. This was a complete fail. The woman just looked at us with a confused look on her face. After numerous people tried to figure out what she was asking, a young man helped her out. Carly got her treat and everything was ok. This combined with our inability to ask for directions has been a bit of a pain in the butt.

Ok, despite striking out at the bakery, we walked into the grocery store to find a great bakery section. My teammate and I split an apple turnover and it was fantastic. Just saying, it was totally worth the calories that I will have to carry up the hill with me tomorrow.

Don't drop your clip. This is a just a little lesson that Kelly learned on the range today. She dropped her full clip down the range today during the race. She had to get an official to grab the clip for her. So that's a lesson for us: No Dropping Clips!

Finally, not even kidding, the Czech team is trying to kill us. We were walking back from town, and we heard a honk right behind us. We turned to look just as the Czech team blew by us in their van. They passed us so closely that Carly had to move out of the way. They waved as they passed, but we're still convinced they are out to get us.

Tomorrow is the second race of the Czech Cup and my first race since I got here. Hopefully I don't wake up unable to breathe again. I'll let you know how it goes!

Day one...

Let's see...What can I say about the first day of any trip? There's the jetlag, the scraping of all your skis, the realization your shampoo exploded in your bag, the aches from having spent 24 hours sitting down, and of course, there's the realization you don't speak a word of the language you're hearing and you have no idea where the bathroom is. The nice this about this trip is, it wasn't my shampoo bottle. The first day of any trip involves constantly feeling like you're falling. You have so many things to do, and yet the only concept you can possibly comprehend is sleep.

It usually starts first thing in the morning when you realize you have no idea when or where you are supposed to be that day. You remember the coach telling you, but you were so damned tired from the trip that when the coach told you the night before it went in one ear, and out the other. This feeling doesn't go away, for the rest of the day you always feel like you are falling behind....probably because you are. You have so many pairs of skis to scrape, and so little time to scrape them. Not to mention, you were in such a rush when you got up that you forgot to pee, and now you don't know where the bathroom is. If you manage to get through all of these wonderful moments, then congratulations, you are one step ahead of me. That leaves you roughly 5 steps behind everyone else.

We went out the range today for a ski in the morning and went back in the afternoon for some shooting. Good news: I can still hit the targets. Bad news: So can the 5'3" 95lbs Russian girl beside, and I'm going to risk a guess here and say that she climbs those hills a little bit faster than I do. Other than that though, I'm feeling OK. Trying to ditch the cough/cold I seem to be acquiring by skipping tomorrow's race, and hopefully making Sundays race a little more worthwhile.

Some pictures from today's adventures:

Yeah, that's me on the far left, that's about as high as I jump...

Tara and I at the Venue, looking snazzy in our USA kit.

Lost bags? Missing rifle parts? CHRISTMAS!

Must be another day with the US Youth Team. The good news is, Tara found a spare part to put her rifle together and...well...Ray's bags are still missing. I'm sure they'll get here tomorrow...or the next day...

We are all settled in here in Nove Mesto, and are awaiting the last piece of this World Juniors puzzle: The Snow! There is very little snow here in our section of the Czech Republic, but there are people working hard to make and move snow out across the race course so that we will be able to race on Saturday.


While we wait for enough snow to race,the skiers are happy that there is just enough snow on the ground that our second Christmas was a white one. Our second Christmas was brought to us by Adidas and the USBA, and we are very very appreciative. Here's a rundown of our gear for this trip:Just in case we thought we might have to go topless we have:

• A winter Jacket
• A sweater
• Race suit top
• Warm-up jacket
• Warm-up vest
• Puffy vest
• A polo shirt
• A t-shirt
• A long sleeve shirt
• A turtleneck

A disproportionately low number of pants leaves us with:

• Race tights
• Warm-up pants
• Snow pants
  (Not to worry though, we'll tooooootally do laundry....)

Our ears and fingers will be warm with our:

• Fuzzy hat
• Brimmed toque
• Toque
• Race hat
• Headband
• Gloves
  

And just in case the jumbotron screens were going to blind us we have Adidas sunglasses with three different lenses!

It really is like second Christmas here in the Czech Republic. Now we just have to worry about fitting it all in our bags on the way home!

Delayed flights. Missed connections. What's new?

I’m becoming convinced that it is not possible for me to travel to Europe without facing any of the aforementioned problems. On this particular trip, the issues started before we even left Vermont. A delay leaving Vermont left us stranded in Philadelphia, searching for another flight to Europe. In the end grabbed seats on a flight leaving a bit later headed to Munich.

Now looking on the bright side, the plane flying to Munich was huge and mostly empty. I had 4 seats all to myself, and I was able to sprawl right across them for some sleep. This almost makes up for sprinting across the Philadelphia airport with a huge backpack, only to miss the flight anyways.

I am now chilling in the Munich airport, which I have to say, is among the less exciting airports I have flown through. However, since it is currently 10:15am here (4:15 am in VT) and I have had 1.5 hours of sleep, I am really appreciating the free coffee. I’ve already had 2 cups so jet lag can kiss my ass.

SLU Carnival...

Let's take a poll:
Which do you think I can do faster: Classic? or Skate?
If you said skate you are.....**drum roll**...Wrong!

At this weekends Saint Lawrence University Winter Carnival I actually went faster per km doing classic than I did skate. Needless to say I am less than impressed with myself. Why you ask? Because I didn't actually go very fast classic.

Despite that fun fact, I am really happy that I finished my first classic race in 9 years with all my limbs....even though I did fall 100m from the finish (classic skis are too long), I feel like I managed to avoid embarrassing myself too badly, which is pretty much my criteria for a good classic race.

As for the skate race...what skate race? In all seriousness I have never finished a race feeling as beasted as I did after that race. I will say that I enjoyed climbing the van hoe trails without a rifle on my back, but that feeling went away quickly when I hit the 2km mark and realized that there were still 8km to go. I was just happy to finish and put the race behind me.

Race Shout Out: goes out to Gabby who brought the heat in the Skate race finishing 54th.

Right now the team is back at school preparing for the Colby Carnival while I start preparing for World Juniors in biathlon. Looking forward to the Czech Republic, and hoping for some good races!

The SMC Womens Nordic Team

So I lied...

Okay, so last time when I told you I would update more often? I was totally lying...
I had good intentions, I really meant to update, but alas, I did not. On the bright side...I'm here now! And I'm blogging!

Since the last time I updated the season has really revved up, and things are in full swing both in Biathlon and Nordic. The first North American Cup of the season was a success...for everyone else...between the jet lag, the lack of sleep, and the knee injury I had a less than satisfactory race series.

This was more than made up for at the US Youth Team Trials where I managed to put it together despite a month of inconsistent training. We leave on Wednesday for World Youth Championships in the Czech Republic. It was a strong field and applause goes out to all of the kids who raced for the few slots on the team.

I will do my best (not necessarily all that good...) to keep you updated about biathlon over the next few weeks. Cheers.