From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Park City 5th grade class visit

divWhile training at Soldier Hollow this month, I got the opportunity to visit a class of b5th graders/b at bParley’s Elementary School in Park City/b. We had plenty of time to talk about biathlon, traveling and answering their questions. This was a fun group who offered some great questions about skiing and shooting. Defining my sport, and its difficulty, really came through however once I showed them a paper target from the morning’s training session that demonstrated what a group of 5 prone and 5 standing shots at 50 meters looks like, AND, with the help of their imaginations I demonstrated both shooting positions./divdivbr //diva onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_k1DHbqzFvCE/SuuxnwFC3xI/AAAAAAAAAqA/yKNRXRS-unc/s1600-h/IMGP0146.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 260px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_k1DHbqzFvCE/SuuxnwFC3xI/AAAAAAAAAqA/yKNRXRS-unc/s400/IMGP0146.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5398603874812747538″ //adiv style=”text-align: center;”iDemonstrating the standing position./i/divdivbr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_k1DHbqzFvCE/Suuxniv0p2I/AAAAAAAAAp4/jOLAEiDUlT4/s1600-h/IMGP0144.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 324px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_k1DHbqzFvCE/Suuxniv0p2I/AAAAAAAAAp4/jOLAEiDUlT4/s400/IMGP0144.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5398603871234074466″ //adiv style=”text-align: center;”iDemonstrating the prone position./i/div/divdivbr //divdivThis is a lucky bunch of kids who are growing up in an Olympic town, just the same as I did. Growing up, I dabbled in speedskating, raced alpine competitively until I was 15, even tried figureskating (but ultimately chose skiing to my parents’ great relief), my siblings ventured off into the freestyle world, I skied Bill Koch with the local ski club occasionally, took one shot at jumping off the 15m ski jump and also had a couple opportunities to give luge a try. Along with school, sports was obviously something I have always been in to, but honestly never thought it would actually become my career. In retrospect I am very glad that I had so many opportunities to take advantage of living in the wintry Adirondacks and was able to use sport as a mode for learning about my self, being a teammate, good sportswoman, getting outdoors, setting goals and achieving them. Now that I travel the world with biathlon, I am thankful I had a pretty good base to start from./divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1362992899157556571-4328683864743074876?l=comeskiwithme.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div