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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.

Author: SusanD

Winter’s in the Air

Soon it begins. On Tuesday I will be traveling to Sweden to start another winter of World Cup biathlon racing. It means four months living out of a duffel bag and braving airports almost every week… The thrill of putting on a race bib and standing on a start line in front of TV cameras and screaming spectators… Weathering the tremendous ups and downs that are biathlon’s emotional roller coaster… Laughing at the antics of teammates, wax techs and coaches every night at dinner… And skiing, on snow, everyday. I can’t wait!

The first World Cup biathlon race of the season takes place in Ostersund, Sweden on Sunday, November 25th (9:30 am eastern US standard time). It is a mixed relay, meaning that we will have two women and two men competing together on one team. You can watch it live on your computer by going to Biathlon World TV. Put it on your calendar.

In the meantime, watch replays from last year on Biathlon World TV to get fired up. The 2011/2012 World Cup 9 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia has some good ones- scroll to the right and click on the one titled “pursuit women replay”.

I have spent the past week at home in Craftsbury trying to catch up with friends and family and get organized before the long winter away.

A few items that are coming with me to Europe this year that I didn’t have last year: a travel size guitar, a sunlamp, maple syrup, a foam roller, a German grammar workbook and a 3D puzzle.

The Outdoor Center is closed for the fall off season, so it has been quieter than normal, but I have had no problem staying busy. Even though the GRP skiers are away training in Canmore, I have had a great time getting to know the new GRP rowers. We even trained together in the gym one morning- I did strength circuits while they lined up 7 or 8 rowing machines next to each other for an interval workout.

Dinner with the rowers and friends at Faraway Farm

The Outdoor Center started blowing snow last week, which meant I got to dust off an old pair or rock skis and carve some turns. Later in the week we had 15-20 BKL kids and juniors swarming over the pile like ants. It doesn’t matter how old you are, the season’s first snow never loses its magic.

Davis took the first sledding runs down “Mt. Craftsbury” (photo: Judy Geer)

Ida was also around for a few days before heading to Europe for the cross country World Cup season. We visited our elementary school together to talk to Barton’s seventh graders about training, racing and traveling the world. The most interesting question we were asked: “Have you ever seen a lion?”

I also visited my high school, St. Johnsbury Academy and talked to the students about what it takes to chase after big goals. Watch the YouTube video

I never got around to writing a blog post about our recent national team training camp in Utah (3 weeks in late October/ early November) but here are a couple pics:

The US Women and guest star Andrea Henkel from Germany enjoying Utah’s mountains (photo: Hannah Dreissigacker). Read about what it has been like to train with and get to know an Olympic champion over the past few years here

Some of “Jonne’s Angels” enjoying our last week in Utah (photo: Armin Auchentaller). For more camp pictures and a recap from Utah, check out Hannah’s blog post here

November 11, 2012
The Singletrack Shootdown and the Value of Volunteers

The scene at the “Singletrack Shootdown” Photo: Judy Geer

A week ago, we hosted a biathlon race at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center as part of our Oktoberfest celebrations. The event included a beginners’s pre-race shooting safety clinic and featured separate races for beginners and for experienced biathletes. Additionally, participants could chose to either compete running or mountain biking. The races consisted of 5 laps on woodsy single-track trails and had 4 shooting stages. Beginners shot prone (laying down) for all stages at the bigger standing-sized targets while experienced biathletes shot from both the prone and standing positions at the standard target sizes.

Craftsbury junior coach, Jeremy Nellis, and myself were the primary race organizers. Neither of us has a lot of biathlon race organizing experience. We didn’t know exactly what to expect. During the week leading up to the race, we fixed up the targets, marked out the course, and recruited a handful of volunteers to help out. Brand new events at the Outdoor Center rarely have a huge turnout the first year and most biathlon events in the United States have low participation. I had no idea how many people would show up, but I guessed there wouldn’t be many. The stack of 50 waviers and registration forms that I printed out looked wishfully large.

Imagine our surprise when 65 people lined up at the registration table on race morning!

The registration table, run by Carlie Geer, starts to get busy. Photo: Judy Geer

It was very exciting to have such a huge turnout for the event and it was also a little stressful. We had over 50 people in the day’s largest race (beginners’) and our range has only 10 targets. Things were going to be tight. Biathlon races require a huge number of volunteers compared to a normal ski race. On the shooting range you need people scoring the targets, backup scorers, target resetters, and timers (in case all shooting points are full and a time credit needs to be given). For a beginners’s race you need even more people for reloading magazines, assisting shooters when needed and most importantly making sure everything is operating safely.

Luckily the crowd was flexible and the volunteers and staff were up to the challenge. We had several volunteers signed up ahead of time, but many parents and spectators also stepped up on race day to help. After quick lessons about how to load magazines or record shooting scores, they went to work. In addition, many of the “expert” competitors who would be racing later in the morning jumped in to help out on their own initiative. They taught beginners during the shooting clinic and delayed their own race warm-up to assist on the range during the beginners’ race. We ran into several unanticipated problems during the day (ran out of safety pins for race numbers, had to move back start times, the bike course was too difficult, etc) but the event ran surprising smoothly and the atmosphere was relaxed. As impressive as it was to have so many racers, I was even more blown away by how helpful and understanding the crowd was. Our volunteers and staff for the day numbered almost 30. Many thanks to everyone for coming, competitors and volunteers alike!

I hope everybody had a great time. We learned a lot from this experience and plan to have more Craftsbury biathlon events in the coming year, so stay tuned.

Dick Dreissigacker instructs a group volunteers how to be score keepers on the range. Photo: Judy Geer

The first round of participants receive safety instruction at the beginners’ clinic. Photo: Jamie Chapman

The beginners’ clinic featured one-on-one instruction, talking each participant through all the steps of the shooting process. Photo: Jamie Chapman

Craftsbury junior skier Matthew Lawlor practices before the race. He is one of several young skiers in the Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club that have been attending weekly shooting practices with Jeremy. Matthew went on to win the beginners’s running division, his first biathlon race. Photo: Jamie Chapman

Giving final instructions to racers at the starting line of the beginners race. Photo: Hannah Dreissigacker

Sheldon Miller and Andrea Carpentier are experts at smoothly running things from behind the scenes. Normally they can be found in the back office of the Outdoor Center but on race days, you will probably spot them directing timing near the finish line. Photo: Judy Geer

Lynn Jennings and Lauren Gillott keeping track of penalty loops. Photo: Judy Geer

The firing line. Photo: Jamie Chapman

Competitors in the beginners’ race being supervised by experienced biathlon coaches and athletes. Photo: Judy Geer

Shooters on the range during the expert race. Photo: Judy Geer

Mountain bike racers leaving the range and heading back onto the bike course. Photo: Judy Geer

The GRP rowers showed up en masse to race and help out. Phil Henson puts on a goofy face during a trip around the penalty loop. Photo: Judy Geer

The most exciting battle of the day was between siblings Jack and Callie Young, Craftsbury youth skiers. After matching each other’s performances on the range, the race came down to the final sprint, in which Callie barely edged Jack. Their competitive spirit matches any I have seen at any level. Photo: Judy Geer

Craftsbury youth and junior skiers hanging out and staying warm post race. Bonus points if you can identify the GRP ski racer face in the mix. Photo: Hannah Dressigacker

October 15, 2012
Update from Germany

For the past couple weeks, I have been training in Germany with the USBA national A team. We have spent time at some of the winter World Cup venues and shared the ranges with European national teams and club teams. The first couple weeks were in Bavaria, training at Ruhpolding. This week we are training in eastern Germany at Oberhof and using the indoor ski hall a lot. Unlike camps back home, we have almost all of our team staff together onsite, including coaches, wax techs, physios, etc, most of whom live in Europe.

One of my favorite things about being over here in the summer is that we can get out and see a lot of the surrounding area. In the winter race season, we are lucky if we see more than the venue, the hotel and maybe the grocery store.

In Bavaria we stayed in the town of Inzell, at the foot of a mountain. Our cabins had a pool out front, which helped us survive temperatures in the mid 90s. The pool was chemical-free and had recirculating water- the plant life along the edges filtered the water and kept it clean.

The valley was very green and idyllic, with lots of small farms. In some ways it reminded me of Craftsbury.

Former Craftsbury and Dartmouth teammate Chelsea Little came to visit on her way to start grad school in Sweden. We spent an afternoon at Konigsee near Berchtesgaden (photo: Sara Studebaker)

The team experienced all sorts of interesting Bavarian foods during our two weeks. Pictured above is Schweinshax’n, or roasted ham hock. My favorite meal was smoked trout, served whole. The most interesting was a lean unidentified chunk of meat that tasted a lot like corned beef. After I ate it, I was told it was cow tongue.

Training at the range. We shared the facility with many other teams, including Germans, Ukrainians, and a large group of French juniors. (photo credit: Chelsea Little)

Rainy days call for bright colors…

… and not just for us. I found a whole hillside crawling with 6 inch long Fire Salamanders one rainy morning. This sighting was very special for me. When I was in kindergarten, I used to have a pet salamander a lot like these (it was an Eastern Spotted Salamander), and back home it is really usual to spot them in the wild. (photo credit: Wikipedia).

We spent one afternoon at the University of Salzburg’s indoor shooting hall. They hooked our rifles up to various force places and lasers that recorded things like trigger pressure and the path our barrels trace over the target.

My favorite afternoon recovery workouts involved hiking through alpine cow pastures to mountain alms and maybe ordering a coffee or beer. The Stoisseralm high above our cabin had a great view looking down onto Salzburg. On the way back down we took breaks to pick blackberries and blueberries. (photo credit: Sara Studebaker)

Mountain yoga over Inzell with Sara

This past weekend we relocated to Oberhof, where we spend our mornings training on snow in the ski tunnel and our afternoons training outside. We are working closely with our team techs to test new skis for the coming season.

Ski hall from above (photo credit: Thueringen tourism website)

The view from inside. The smaller branches depart from the corners of the hall and the loop is surprisingly hilly.

September 4, 2012
Italy Revisited

One of my long time biathlon teammates, Laura Spector, recently decided to not continue competing this year. Laura has always been an awesome training buddy who can be counted on for the longest biking or hiking adventures and I’ve missed having her around this summer. She was also instrumental in starting the forward momentum of the US women’s biathlon team. During the 2010-2011 season, I couldn’t wait to look up results and see how much Laura and the other World Cup ladies had improved each week. For the first time, we really started to believe we belonged with the best athletes in the world.

Best of luck Laura as you pursue your biology interests! Anytime you need a break from the lab or fruit flies, the mountains await. We still need to summit Mount Timpanogos someday.

The following blog post is a write-up I did for NENSA midway through last season about my first World Cup mass start race. During the experience, I couldn’t help but reminisce about what it was like watching Laura racing a year earlier.

On an evening in early January 2011, a small group of American biathletes crowded around a single computer screen in a Czech hotel. We were there competing in IBU Cups (biathlon’s equivalent of OPA Cups) but at that moment we were much more interested in what was happening on the World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. One of our own, Laura Spector, had earned a start spot in the mass start and was competing as the lone American. We managed to coax the hotel’s weak wireless signal to stream the race onto one computer and watched Laura ski a very smart race. She looked relaxed under the brilliant lights and in front of a crowd of 30,000 spectators. After starting out near the tail end of the pack during her first loop, she relied on her solid prone shooting to move up. I was very impressed.

Laura racing in Oberhof in 2011. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA

Mass starts are the most exclusive events on the biathlon World Cup. Only 30 women can start each race, which is the maximum number a shooting range can accommodate at once. 25 start spots are saved for the highest ranked women on the season’s overall points list. The remaining 5 are allocated based on results from earlier in the week. Laura earned one of those last 5 spots and was the first American woman in years to compete in a mass start. It was inspiring for us to see her in the mix. Even our typically reserved Finnish coach, Jonne Kahkonen, couldn’t stop beaming as he watched the race unfold on the computer screen.

That evening was a turning point; it marked a shift in our team’s expectations. We had all trained and raced with Laura over the past several years. If she could do it, what was stopping us? Americans Sara Studebaker and Haley Johnson soon earned spots in subsequent mass starts that season. As a team, we began to expect that someone would qualify to represent us in the mass starts, and it might not be the same athlete(s) every time.

About a year after watching Laura’s mass start debut, I found myself standing nervously on the starting line before my first World Cup mass start in Antholz, Italy. I had qualified based off of a sprint race a couple days before, which had been my career best. In front of me, I could see rows of athletes filled with French, Norwegian, Russian, and German suits. Above me towered the spectacular Dolomite Mountains. With a minute to the start, the roaring crowd had fallen silent, replaced by an eerie heartbeat thumping from the loud speakers. “Boom-boom….boom-boom… boom-boom.” I felt nervous, but I smiled; standing on this starting line was not such a bad place to be.

As the sole American qualifier, I found it strange to go through my normal pre-race routines without any of my teammates. Rather than having to zero my rifle in 5 minutes, I could take up to 40 minutes if I needed, and I shot a few extra clips to better warm-up. I conferred with coach Jonne about race tactics, including what line I should take over the finishing stretch if I needed to out-sprint someone. My teammate Sara had raced the first leg of our relay earlier in the week and had some valuable starting advice: “don’t be afraid to stop and let a pileup untangle itself,” she told me, “and don’t be nervous- the worst you can do is 30th place.” I decided the most important part of my race plan was to have fun and be patient.

A mass start is very much a shooter’s race and it favors the patient. The field doesn’t break up much until the first trip to the shooting range. The key to success is to avoid the penalty loop at all costs. I knew I’d probably lose a little time to the leaders on skis, but I could easily lose a disastrous amount of time by missing targets. Shooting in a pack is the most challenging type of shooting because you can be easily distracted by the people around you. You can see them out of the corner of your eye and hear how fast they are shooting. You are aware of when they leave the mat and you start thinking about the seconds you are losing. I knew I needed to remain as calm as possible in the shooting range in order to hit targets. “Patience,” I reminded myself one last time.

Before I knew it, the gun went off and the race had begun. Four years of college carnival mass starts were perfect preparation for the hectic scramble off the starting line. I love the Zen-like feeling of mass starts. My senses narrow and sharpen, and I automatically react to momentary gaps in the pack. I pass people by double poling through narrow margins. About a kilometer into my race, I saw a couple racers tangle out of the corner of my eye but we quickly left them behind. Once the pack settled into two long columns, I focused on skiing smoothly and efficiently, trying to match the rhythm of the woman in front of me.

In the pack in Antholz. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA

In our first visit to the shooting range, I had to shoot on my bib number: 27. It was near the entrance to the range, so I started my approach procedure early. Before reaching the mat, I took deep breathes to ventilate, scanned the stadium flags and the range flags to see what the wind was doing, and opened the rifle’ sight covers and bolt. The process felt automatic thanks to the thousands of times I had practiced it. I landed on the mat, swung off my rifle, loaded a clip and dropped into prone position. I quickly checked to make sure I wasn’t holding any unnecessary tension in my hands and shoulders. Then there was nothing more except the target and the pressure of the trigger against my fingertip. Bolt, breathe, shoot. Bolt, breathe, shoot… I was one of the last racers off my mat, but I had hit all five of my targets. My reward was seeing a mass of colorful spandex veering right into the penalty loop while I continued straight onto the course. Only a handful of other racers also cleaned that first stage. I was sitting in the top 10!

The remainder of the race (4 more 2.5 km loops and 3 more shooting stages) passed by in a blur. I settled in behind the pack ahead of me. Charging up the biggest hill on the course past a mob of coaches and spectators, my eyes sought out an American jacket. One of our coaches, Armin Auchentaller, was holding up a magnet target board showing me where the shots from my first shooting had landed. My group was centered and he hollered “no corrections!” as I glided past. I met his eyes for an instant and nodded that I got the message. In the next prone stage, I missed a couple shots and fell back several places. Despite not losing much ground on skis, 5 misses over the course of the entire race landed me near the back of the field going into the final lap. With all the shooting behind me there was no reason to be patient anymore. Jonne had instructed me to “ski like a woodpecker” on the last lap and I dug to the bottom of the well to pass one more racer.

My finishing place was the same as my bib number and starting rank. 27th place out of 30 competitors may not look particularly exciting on paper, but I felt good about it. In many ways the experience was more valuable than any stats on a results sheet. Under the pressure of head to head shooting, I had cleaned two stages and that boosted my confidence. Sitting in the top 10 midway through the race gave me a clear glimpse of what was possible. We still had plenty of racing to come later in the season and our team was moving forward. I left Antholz feeling hungry.

August 8, 2012
Olympic Day at Hosmer Point

We have less than a month until the London Summer Olympics begin and anticipation is building across the globe. Last Wednesday, June 27th, we celebrated Olympic Day right here in Craftsbury, Vermont at Hosmer Point summer camp. About 60 kids aged 9-14 participated in this free event that included marching in opening ceremonies, […]

July 1, 2012
Adventure on Hunger Mountain

While visiting my family for Father’s Day, I ran across an old scrapbook in my childhood bedroom. One gem that I unearthed was a NENSA Newsletter featuring a story that the Sargent sisters and I had written together many years ago. It brought me back to one of the most memorable misadventures from our Bill […]

June 17, 2012
Summits, Slides and Castles in the Air

There is a lot to love about being on a mountain top. Refreshing breezes, a flow of puffy white clouds that tow splotchy shadows across ridge lines, and a lush carpet of contrasting peaks and valleys stretching across the land. I can see every shade of green in the forests below and several gray cliff […]

June 15, 2012
The Bounty of Bend

What do skiing, mountain biking, sunburns, snowstorms, rainbows and lots of roundabouts all have in common? They can all be found in Bend, Oregon in the month of May.
For the first time in recent memory, the US Biathlon team sent a group of athletes to Bend for an early summer on-snow training camp. We left […]

May 25, 2012
Craftsbury Critters

Although the new training year is well underway, I’d like to take little time to look back on the month of April. For a professional ski racer, it is our vacation month, the one time of year when we can stop thinking about training or racing for more than a couple days at a time. Most athletes will travel somewhere exciting or find a part time job. After four months in Europe this winter, I wanted to stay close to home.

April in Craftsbury was extremely quiet. With the ski trails melting and the lake not yet ready for rowing camps, the Outdoor Center shut down for a month. The parking lots emptied, the dinning hall closed up, and the residents of our team house at Elinor’s dispersed. I felt like the entire trail network, the lake, the dirt roads, and all of the local plants and animals were my own private world.

My favorite part of living at the Outdoor Center in the spring off-season is seeing lots of wildlife. For example, every morning at breakfast, I would hear the unearthly gobble of a big old tom turkey from the bottom of our field. (He conveniently vacated the neighborhood, of course, just days before hunting season opened on May 1st). Wondering what other wildlife might be out and about, I began taking early morning and late evening “wildlife” walks around the trails. I startled deer who took off bounding with white tails blazing high. From the Black River swamp, I flushed prehistoric-looking great blue herons. I heard barred owls hooting from the cedar trees, the courtship drumming of ruffed grouse, and coyotes yipping far away. On warmer days, a mighty chorus of spring peepers cried out from wooded vernal pools, where they left globs of gelatinous egg masses. On my excursions, I sometimes stopped by patches of edible wild ramps and fiddleheads and picked a few for dinner.

My biggest fear walking around the woods at night is not bear or moose, but that I’ll literally run into a porcupine. They can’t see, hear or smell, at least not very well. One evening, I stood 15 feet away watching one obliviously gnawing on some sticks at the forest edge. He slowly foraged towards me, not sensing a human in the vicinity. He would have bumped into me I think, had I not backed away from the threat of his quills.

Following the last Spring Series races, I continued to ski the 1.5 km loop and only gave up when the trail’s mud sections outnumbered the skiable slush sections. I stopped to take a picture of the melting ski trails and inadvertently captured a rare creature on camera, one I never had a good glimpse of before:

By the time I realized that the bobcat was there, he was disappearing into the woods.

One day Eric Hanson, a ski trail groomer at Craftsbury and the Vermont state loon biologist, invited me to help install nesting platforms on a couple of local lakes. These platforms can facilitate higher rates of loon reproductive success, especially in lakes that have little natural hummocky habitat or in lakes with high water level fluctuations. The platforms are basically floating log rafts tethered to cinder block anchors. Decomposing cattails, muck, and low shrubs are added on top to provide nest building materials and protective shelter. Transporting the rafts to their chosen site was a challenge; it involved balancing them over a canoe’s gunwales or towing them though the water at a snail’s pace.

After installing one nesting platform, we encountered a trio of loons. We watched them for awhile and saw some wing beating, an aggressive territorial behavior. Loons will fight other loons of the same gender for the right to breed on a lake.

As I write this, I am once again far away from Craftsbury in pursuit of my ski dreams. This time I am in Bend, Oregon, another beautiful and wild place, where there is still plenty of snow for skiing. The US and Canadian national ski and biathlon teams are all here, as are many other athletes, including some Craftsbury GRPers. We are putting in lots of on-snow hours which will serve as foundation for the rest of the year’s training. Stay tuned for future updates and pictures.

May 18, 2012
Ханты-Мансийск (Khanty-Mansiysk)

Following World Championships in Germany, the biathlon circus packed onto 3 different charter planes headed for central Russian and the final World Cup competitions of the season. I was excited for the chance to see Khanty-Mansiysk after hearing so much about it, but I was also very tired from the previous week’s racing. I couldn’t help but feel like I traveling 5 timezones in the wrong direction. However, the racing has been awesome, the temperatures have been reasonable, the food is (somewhat) edible and Russia’s oddities have kept us plenty entertained.

Many athletes haven’t bothered to adjust to the time change, especially since all the competitions are in the evening. The bright white lights of the stadium extend normal daylight hours and I keeping forgetting that it is well past sunset when I cool down from my races. Sara and I have watching movies late at night (starting around 11:00) to help us fall asleep and we’ve been sleeping-in until well past 9.

Where in the world are we? At an oil boom town in Siberia

Some of athlete housing: a tropical paradise. I can almost imagine the snow as a white sandy beach.

Adventures at the grocery store, where the vodka aisle is the same size as the vegetable aisle

Hungry? With the wide selection, you should to be able to find some type of canned meat to your liking. I was also very excited to find some white cheddar in the cheese section, but it didn't live up to my high Vermont standards.

Since the tap water is not safe to drink, we've been going through lots of bottled water. Don't worry, we are finding ways to be green and reuse all those plastic bottles. Photo: Sara Studebaker

A fur vendor who set up in the lobby of our hotel

This beautiful church sits on top of the hill overlooking downtown

A familiar face. Posters featuring Russian and Soviet superstars from years past line the road to the venue. Walking by the signs one day, Sara commented "That one looks like Algis!" and it was indeed. Algis Shalna, formerly of Lithuania, now lives in Vermont and coaches many local biathletes, including our Craftsbury crew.

Reindeer and sled on route to the stadium to pick up medalists for a victory loop. Seconds after I took this picture, these animals ran wild knocking their driver off the sled and dragging him into the woods. I started wondering if any of the medalists would survive to race in the next day's pursuit.

For all its quirks, Khanty has one of the most professional and state-of-the-art race venues I have ever seen.

March 18, 2012
A Day I’ll Never Forget

I like to describe biathlon as an emotional rollercoaster. For athletes, the highs are very intense and the lows can feel devastating as we seek to have the “perfect race.” I rarely come close.   Many different pieces must come together on the same day. I lucked out on a special day in Ruhpolding, Germany. Many pieces came together for me when it counted the most and I placed 5th at World Championships in the Individual race.

Racing in Bib #1 meant being alone on the first loop. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA

I usually prefer being seeded about 1/3 of the way through the race field so that I can ski around the fastest competitors. However, in these Championships I was not destined to have a normal starting number. Earlier in the week, I started the Sprint last with bib #118. For the Individual, I had the opposite experience and was assigned bib #1. So much for sticking to routine. I felt a little nervous, but Hannah pointed out a positive: “you’ll get to be famous, no matter how you race!”

A few of the 30,000 fans packed into the Chiemgau Arena. Photo: Jonne Kahkonen

Despite a few extra nerves, I enjoyed myself at the starting line. I hadn’t put much pressure on myself for the Individual. Going into the Championships, I believed the Sprint was my best chance for doing well. The Individual is usually my weakest race because it is more of a shooter’s race and each missed target results in a costly one minute penalty. That said, it is a race where anybody can have a good day if they shoot well, and I knew that included me.

My parents, Stan and Judi made it over to Europe to watch. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier.com

I later heard that the film crews found my parents in the crowd and showed them on the big screen as I started. Once upon a time, my parents used to cross-country ski race for the University of Vermont. My father also competed in the ’76 and ’80 Olympics. Since then, they have turned into elite level fans who will arrive at the venue 5 hours before race start to claim a front row spot along the fence. Over the course of the championships, they befriended (i.e. were adopted by) several other spectators around them. One afternoon they even returned with German flags painted on their faces. I told them that this was only acceptable if their new friends started sporting stars and stripes. However, I must give them credit for turning their section of fence into a giant American cheering section.

Cleaning prone. Photo: NordicFocus/USBA

Any serious biathlete can clean (hit all their targets) during practice, even during high intensity workouts. However with the pressure of a race, shooting becomes a lot more difficult. I find that the more I want to hit my targets, the less likely the paddles are to fall. Until a few weeks ago, I had never cleaned a race. I finally cleaned an Italian Cup Sprint the week before World Championships, which was a huge boost for my shooting confidence.

During the Individual, I felt like I couldn’t miss my targets. I was very careful and deliberate in the range, taking a little extra time to nail my set up. Once I was confident it couldn’t be better, I focused on having a smooth trigger squeeze. During the second stage I missed a single target, which actually shocked me. The shot looked good, felt good, and I had followed through.

The final loop was all about hanging on. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier

Halfway through the fourth (penultimate) loop I skied under a jumbotron and heard the announcer mention the “surprising leader of the race so far… American Susan Dunklee.” Hearing that sent a jarring shock of adrenaline into my system and my heart jumped into my throat. I had known I was having a good race, but I hadn’t dreamed that I might be leading! All I could do at that point was put all my focus into climbing the hill ahead of me. I hoped my head would clear by the time I arrived in the shooting range. Thinking back, I don’t really member what was going thru my head during the last standing shooting.   I remember feeling completely relaxed and all 5 targets turned white. It was incredible!

The work wasn’t done. Skiing was very challenging, especially in the later loops. Warm temperatures over the past several days had created lots of deep, slushy snow and my legs felt like toast. On the last loop, all our coaches and staff were yelling that I was in medal contention. The crowd was roaring too, and I felt blasted by a tunnel of sound with no place to escape.   I tried to ski faster, but I couldn’t find my highest gear. It still ended up being the race of my life.

At the finish line. Photo:NordicFocus/USBA

I smiled up at the crowd from the finishing pen and they went crazy. It surprised me to see them so excited. They seem to like seeing the Americans do well.

A new experience: Sitting in the leader's lounge until I got bumped from the medals. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier.com

Pat, one of my primary coaches the past several years (and a Vermonter!), watching my last standing shooting with both the video stream and live results. Photo: Pat Coffey

It was really cool to hear how many people had been watching the races live from back home.   Apparently my little cousin Camerin went to school after watching and spent show-and-tell explaining skiing and shooting to her friends. I was psyched to hear about that.

The evening awards ceremony in downtown Ruhpolding. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier.com

The race didn’t really sink in for me until I got off the awards stage. My teammates, my parents, and all our staff were there. Everybody was so excited and it was very special to share that moment with them. We had pictures and hugs all around.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the week. Post awards ceremony with teammates Lanny and Annelies. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier.com

My teammates helped me pick out a souvenir to remember Ruhpolding. I decided on a Dirndl (traditional Bavarian dress).

A couple of months ago, our coach Jonne promised the women’s team that if any one of us placed in the top 10 on a World Cup then we could all dye his hair any color we wanted. We went searching for cool colors…

Small Bavarian towns don't have a lot of color options but we found something suitable.

We all decided to tag along with some temporary pink dye on relay day. Photo: Chelsea Little/Fasterskier.com

March 16, 2012
Ruhpolding through an Athlete’s Eyes

Biathlon World Championships Sprint 2012

A beautiful day in Bavaria!

Behind the scenes: what the team wax cabins and changing areas look like from the outside…

… And from the inside. With about 20 staff and athletes sharing this room, it can get a little crowded.

Race day surprise! I failed equipment control on the first attempt today for too light of a trigger weight on my rifle. (The humidity and warm weather caused it to change slightly since I last used it for the relay a couple days ago.) While Coach Armin (left) quickly fixed the trigger, I took the opportunity to take a couple pictures. Coach Jonne (right) reassured me that I'd still have plenty of time to zero afterwards.

Range officials and coaches preparing for race start.

The post-race exodus of 30,000 fans as seen from a hill on course. Thanks to all the spectators who stayed until the very end of the race!

March 4, 2012
Staying Warm in Kontiolahti

It’s only mid February, but most of the season’s biathlon races are over. 8 World Cups are already done. Most recently, we were racing in Kontiolahti, Finland. In spite of the brutal cold, the team had some of its best results ever with a 6th place mixed relay and 5 athletes in the top 16 of the sprint. Unfortunately, I had one of my most challenging weeks of the season trapped in my hotel room with a cold. I only raced the sprint and it was not pretty. However, I still think Kontiolahti will be one of the most memorable World Cups of the year.

Best of luck to Ethan, Tara and the rest of the World Junior biathlon team as they prepare to compete next in Kontiolahti!

Finland was pretty darn cold with temperatures barely legal for racing. In spite of that, in the nearby town of Joensuu where we stayed about 1/4 of pedestrians traveled by bike. Brrrrrrr!

Walking to the race start (l to r: Annelies Cook, Sara Studebaker, Canadian Zina Kocher). The athlete shuttle bus got stuck in traffic and most teams had to walk almost 2 km to arrive at the venue with an hour to race start. Temps were below -16 degrees celsius, hence the protective physio tape many athletes wore on their faces. (photo: Zina Kocher)

Following the races, the family of Mari Laukkanen, one of the Finnish athletes invited our team to their lakeside cabin where they have 3 saunas. They fired up the traditional smoke sauna for us (pictured above) and cut a hole in the ice of a nearby stream for us to jump into. (photo: Annelies Cook)

Our hotel in Joensuu

The crazy Finn who coaches us: Jonne Kahkonen (photo: Sara Studebaker)

Jonne's family (who now live in Lake Placid) returned to Finland for a visit during the Kontiolahti World Cup. His wife, Erika and son Elmo made up an awesome cheering section. (photo: Annelies Cook)

Next up: We just arrived in Italy where we will spend a couple weeks preparing for World Championships. They will be held in Ruhpolding, Germany.

February 15, 2012
January on the WC: 3 Weeks and 3 Venues

Since January 1^st, the biathlon World Cup circuit has given us a tour of central Europe. We started in Oberhof, Germany, a biathlon mecca that attracts over 30,000 fans. Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic, site of the 2013 World Championships, hosted us the following week and treated us to some of the windiest, snowiest and most challenging race conditions we’ve seen. Antholz, Italy welcomed us at the start of this week with mountains, altitude, and the first real sunshine of the season.

Oberhof

Favorite moment:

Cooling down with Sara after the Oberhof sprint. There were so many fans exiting the stadium blocking the sidewalk and road that the only place we could successfully jog was a narrow space in between the 100 or so double parked shuttle buses. We covered about half a mile running between buses. Weaving between the crowd and the buses made me feel like I was on The Knight Bus from Harry Potter.

Sara and Annelies dryfire to warm-up before the sprint.

Racers in the crowded finish pen at Oberhof's women’s mass start. We watched from the sidelines because none of us qualified for the race. It's fun to be part of a crowd of over 25,000 fans and have a front row spot to cheer from. I couldn't help but think it would have been even more fun to be in the race.

Crazy Oberhof fans

Nove Mesto

Favorite moment:

I used to think we had a pirate on our staff, or at least a pirate want-to-be. He is a wax tech from Czech named Gara, and he always greets us with a hearty “ahoy!” When we arrived in Czech, I was surprised to discover that many of Gara’s countrymen were also pirates. Everywhere I went, I heard people hailing each other with “ahoy!” Then I had a revelation: perhaps Gara wasn’t a pirate at all; perhaps Gara was simply Czech.

Banners along the Nove Mesto race course. Nove Mesto is the only venue I’ve raced at every year since I started biathlon (they often host IBU Cups.) This year they introduced a brand new course in preparation for hosting World Championships next year.

A view outside our hotel

Most reachable surfaces in the surrounding neighborhood are colored with graffiti. It's actually nice to see some brightness in a gray place.

Some of the team and staff chilling in the hotel hallway. There were very few places in the building where we could pick up a wireless signal.

Antholz

I got off to a rough start in Italy. We had a very long travel day from Nove Mesto (made even longer by a five hour delay due to car problems) and I was feeling overly tired and depressed from being sick. All the women on the team were starting to feel the strain of being on the road for so long away from home, family and friends. I desperately needed to set the reset button in my brain. The best cure: mountains, sunshine, and racing!

Favorite moment (so far): When I left the range after my final shooting in the sprint race, I knew I was on track to have my best result yet. I only missed one target and I was getting splits that I was sitting in about 15th place. The rest of the race was a fight to earn a mass start spot. Only 30 athletes get the honor of starting in a mass start- the top 25 ranked competitors from the entire season, and the next 5 best finishers from the previous sprint. Last year Sara, Laura, and Haley all earned mass start spots at some point during the season (the first time any American women had in years), so I knew it was possible. I placed17th in the sprint with my best finish yet, and I’m racing the mass start on Sunday!

But first things first: team relay this afternoon! This is only the 2nd time this year that we’ve been able to field a women’s team and we are excited.

Finally, the mountainous venue I’ve been waiting for: Antholz!

Armin, one of our coaches, standing behind the scope in his hometown. Most of the US team's staff are Europeans.

Official training under the first true blue sky I’ve seen in Europe this year.

January 21, 2012
Foghof? Rainhof? Windhof?…Oberhof

Knock, knock, knock! On my first morning in Oberhof, Germany, I’m jolted out of sleep by someone rapping on my door. I crawl out of bed and poke my head out into the hallway. “Good morning sleepy head!” my teammates Sara and Annelies great me with a laugh, “you really ought to see yourself in the mirror- you’ve got a handprint on your face.” I must have been using my hand as a pillow. I grunt and glance at my watch: 9:25. I slept for almost 11 hours and I vaguely remember deciding to sleep through my alarm. Oh, the joys of jetlag!

Following breakfast, I venture into the grey world outside for an easy jog and I check out the race venue. The towering spruce trees along the road rock dangerously in the wind. A thin strip of plastic fencing tape is blowing so hard that it sounds like the clatter from a rolling luggage bag. Oberhof has a reputation for crappy weather: wind, rain, and fog. In the race stadium, I run into Max Cobb, executive director of US Biathlon and an IBU official for this week’s competitions. “Is it always this windy here?” I ask him. Max informs me that the Oberhof World Cup usually has at least one day like this.

On the day before the first event, the organizers worked nonstop to truck in enough snow.

The wind hasn’t abated by the afternoon when we arrive at the wax cabins and prepare for official training. The wax room doors are accidents waiting to happen. Open them even the slightest bit and the wind will catch them, swing them wide open, and pin them against the wall. Sara struggles to wrestle our door closed; it looks like a more arduous workout than skiing but I’m laughing so hard that I can’t assist her. I’m very glad our upstairs wax cabin is on the end of the building so we don’t have to risk walking along the narrow balcony front of everybody else’s doors.

Predictably, today’s shooting is frustrating. A teammate sums it up saying “If you can hit 3 targets [per stage], you are doing well.” Standing is especially difficult- my whole body sways in the wind. In order to hit anything, I have to wait out the worst of the gusts and be ready to shoot when there is a split second of calm.

The skiing is slightly better, although the snow is sparse. The organizers have only a 1.5 km loop open for the first couple days of training and are preserving the rest of the course for the races. Before the second afternoon of training, our high performance director, Bernd Eisenbichler, asks the team: “Who hasn’t skied here before? Susan? Annelies?” The closed off part of the course includes the strenuous “Bergsteig” climb and a challenging downhill that will be featured in the race. Last week, the world’s best cross country skiers raced down it during the Tour de Ski and there were a handful of epic crashes. “Don’t worry,” Bernd tells us with a grin, “you only go about 60 km/hr on the downhill.” He’s exaggerating slightly- Tour de Ski competitors were only clocked going 58 km/hr. We are a little worried.

Leif, a member of our men’s team chimes in: “Yeah, it’s not like it is twisty and technical or anything.”

“Shut up!” cries Annelies, and gives Leif a shove, but she’s smiling. On the day before the sprint when we finally get a chance to preview the course, I find the actual downhill anticlimactic after hearing so much about it.

A row of coaches at the scopes during offical training. In the background you can see part of the stands, which wrap around the hill like an amphitheatre.

As soon as we arrived in town, Sara started talking up Oberhof’s opening ceremonies. Last year, she was the only US athlete who bothered to participate, and she thought it was really cool. Usually these events are long and drawn out, with lots of speakers (translated into a couple different languages) and hours of standing in the cold wind. However, this one’s designed to be athlete friendly. Sara, Annelies, and I decide to go as a group this year. We arrive in the indoor waiting area at our assigned time and are immediately given an American flag and instructed to line up at the doorway behind the Ukrainian team. Two minutes later, it is our turn to march outside onto a stage to the sound of some unmemorable soundtrack. Annelies leads with the flag. We smile and wave at the crowded park below. The announcer turns to interview us. “How do you find the weather here?” he asks, and thrusts the microphone under my nose. Oh, you mean the pounding winds, the walls of mist that blast against our faces, the slushy saturated1.5 km loop of snow? “We’re loving it!” I declare. The announcer turns to Sara: “Are you planning to use your wax skis or your water skis?” I’ve never heard of snow skis referred to as wax skis before. “We hope we’ll be using our wax skis,” she responds. The announcer thanks us, and then we are waving to the crowd one last time and parading off stage. Barely five minutes have passed since our arrival in the waiting area. Short and sweet- the way opening ceremonies for these events should be.

Upon exiting the back of the building, we are mobbed by a group of 20 or so autograph seekers. Oberhof is one of the most popular World Cups in terms of fan attendance. On a Wednesday night race, in the worst weather imaginable, 15,000-20,000 fans will show up to watch. Thousands more appear for weekend races. The small group around us right now wields sharpies, event posters, and printed out athlete photos. They ask for our autograph cards. I hadn’t needed them until this year. Right about now, I’m feeling thankful that Annelies and I made a last minute decision to design some cards for ourselves. We each printed out about 100 the day before we flew to Sweden back in November. Fans in Europe expect you to have them on hand, and I like having their support. Let’s face it, American Nordic skiers can use all the support we can get. The tricky part is that if you give out one card, or sign something for one person, the entire group crowds around you. Luckily, there is a security guard in a bright yellow coat ready to intervene if necessary. At this rate, I am going to run out of cards before I even race this week. As we leave the crowd, Sara gives me a piece of advice: “If I were you, I would make sure to save some cards for Ruhpolding.”

Another section of the stands. 3 hours until the men's relay, and fans are already claiming their places.

On my second morning in Oberhof, I wake up at a reasonable early hour. On my way to breakfast, I run into one of our coaches, Per and he looks cheery. “Come here Susan,” he calls me over to the window. “I have to show you something. Look!” We peer through the blinds and he points to the sky. I can see some clear sky among scattered clouds. It’s threatening to snow. It’s even threatening to sunshine. It’s beautiful weather, for Oberhof.

January 5, 2012
Welcome to the World Cup!

This is a belated post about my experiences leading up to my World Cup debut last week in Ostersund, Sweden.

Looking out the window… there are men setting up a television camera on a raised platform. They angle it so it will catch racers hammering over the course’s last uphill.   Volunteers are unraveling sponsor signs, stretching them over large wooden frames and inflating them into balloon arches. A media truck pulls into the stadium and unfolds a jumbotron. It comes to life broadcasting a test screen of technicolor blocks. Towering spotlights gaze down, spilling brilliant white light over every activity and night transforms into a bright day. Like worker ants, wax techs haul a dozen pairs of skis at a time to the course using wooden carriers. They swarm around and around the tracks, always testing, always wondering. Which is the best ski? The most suitable grind? The fastest wax? We still have a couple days before our first race, but looking out the window at all this activity, I already feel nervous.

In the days leading up to the races, we are bombarded with schedules. I’m accustomed to having specific practice and rifle zeroing times, but we also are given designated times to report in for ski testing and course tactic discussions.   Outside of training, we must fit in visits to equipment control and the media center where we get headshots and photos for equipment sponsors. Life suddenly becomes more complicated, but in a good way. Our staff is three times bigger than the staff I’m used to having on the IBU Cup or European Championship level. They all tell me that I need to act needy and that I shouldn’t hesitate to let them know if I could use any help with equipment, training, recovery, health issues, etc.   I’m a little overwhelmed.

One of the first things our team takes care of is passing through equipment control. When we arrive, the German women are already there. I watch as the IBU officials write each woman’s names and country on a sheet of white paper and then take a photograph of their rifle next to the sheet. I suddenly realize what name is on the sheet of the girl standing in front of me… Neuner. I stare for a moment. This is Magdalena Neuner, the German national celebrity, one of the most talented biathletes in the world, and she is standing right in front of me. I don’t know what I expected, but it somehow surprises me that she looks so human and normal. I remember something my dad, a former XC ski racer, told me a few years back: “The Europeans may be fast, but they put their pants on in the morning the same way you do. There is nothing magic about them.” The shock passes.

Later that day, we each test our skis one-on-one with a wax tech. I don’t have very much experience with ski testing and I’ve always struggled to feel small differences in glide. In order to figure out which pair glides the most freely, I wear a different ski on each foot and imagine that there is sandpaper on the bottom of my skis. Then I ask myself which sandpaper feels less gritty. The techs give us about a minute to feel out each combination and then it’s time to compare results and switch to a new combination. The differences between skis sometimes feel so insignificant, it is easy to second guess yourself. After practice, one of the coaches said he heard that I “did well” during ski testing. I couldn’t help but wonder whether that first ski testing exercise was more a test of my own testing abilities than a test of my skis.

On the first day of “official training” I put on my skis and head out into the brightness of the stadium. There are already fans hanging out behind the course fences and snapping pictures as athletes glide by. We are on display. Everything I’ve experienced in the last 48 hours feels so foreign and so far from biathlon as I have known it.   Even the shoot mats seem to glow; I find their neon green color distracting as I lay down to zero my rifle.   Somehow the essence of biathlon has been buried under all the flashy preparations for the World Cup. I must rediscover it.

Following the first race of the season, an IBU Cup that I felt pretty good about, I had a discussion with our team doctor, Ed Merrins. “You wore a smile in the start pen before the race,” he observed. “And you were wearing one after.” Smiling and keeping a light and free attitude works well for me in races. Sometimes I weigh myself down with my own expectations (or those of other people). When that happens, I don’t have as much fun and I don’t think I can tap into my full potential. With that in mind, I decided to force a smile during training and racing the next few days.

Back to that first official practice… After zeroing my rifle, I ski out onto the loop, away from the craziness of the stadium. I follow a trail of spotlights fading into the far reaches of the course. The skis are fast and familiar under my feet and I feel like I’m flying. This is the skiing I know. I travel around the loop, playing with different tempos on the hills, throwing in a few playful hop skate steps. Then I accelerate into the track’s sharpest downhill S-turn and thrill in the adrenaline rush. Returning to the range, I pick up my rifle and drop onto a shooting point. The targets look just like they always do: small dots 50 meters away, and all I have to do is breathe consistently and squeeze the trigger gently. I can do this. It’s just shooting. All of this is just shooting and skiing. Nothing has changed really. I wear a genuine smile on my face and revel in the joy of simply being here.

Fast forward to race day… I step out our front door to head down to the stadium for my zero. Immediately I taste wood smoke on the air from the volunteers’ warming fires. As I walk down through the wax cabins and across the warm-up track, a cool wind brushes against my cheek and I shiver. This is it; I’m about to race in a World Cup. Nothing can get in the way now. Or can it? I have a sudden vision of tripping on the slippery stairs ahead and hurting myself in a freak accident. But I walk down the stairs and I don’t slip. Minutes later, I pass through the stadium entrance tunnel, rifle on my back and skis in hand, and I emerge into the glaring light. It’s time to warm-up.

At the start of the warm-up hardly anybody is in the stands, but they fill up by race time when I make my way to starting chute. It funnels racers one by one into the inflated arch containing the start gate. For thirty seconds, I get this quiet balloon cave entirely to myself. I wave and smile at the camera like I’ve seen so many other athletes do, although I doubt the TV will show an unknown rookie. All the top dogs are already battling it out on the course. I don’t fear the television cameras tonight; I don’t believe they will bother showing any footage of me. I watch the seconds tick by on the start clock. The light turns green and my start time appears. I shoot through the timing wand and the race has begun.

Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus.com

Just ski, I tell myself. It’s no different than training. My mind is clear and I react to the terrain, switching between V2, V2 alt, and V1 techniques as the hills and snow conditions dictate. I think about picking up my tempo around corners and accelerating over the top of each hill. After a couple minutes, I remember that this is a 15 km race and I should probably pace myself, but I’m closing in on a pack just ahead. I’m still fresh and the skiing feels easy. I weave through to the front of the pack and settle in behind a red, yellow, and black uniform of the German team. As we start up the longest climb of the loop, I match the German girl’s rhythm and we cruise up the hill together. Before I realize it, we are already back in the stadium. I check the wind, drop onto a shooting mat, load a clip, and take 5 shots without being fully aware of what I’m doing. It’s only then that the excitement creeps in- I hit all of them! I just cleaned the first stage of my World Cup career! With no penalties yet, I begin lap 2.

Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus.com

Sometimes, it is best to not know certain things. Throughout the entire race, I heard the US coaches and staff cheering for me at different points along the course. They were telling me that I was having a fantastic “running time” (i.e. ski time in European lingo), but they chose not to tell me that I was in third place after that first shooting stage. I also found out after the race that the German girl I skied with was in fact Neuner (which had a lot to do with the fast split time) and that I did get a lot of TV time because I was near her.   I’m not exactly sure what would have happened had I known any of these things during the race. I likely would have slowed down because I didn’t believe I belonged with Neuner and I probably would have felt a lot of pressure on the shooting range and missed more targets. As it was, I still managed to miss a bunch of targets in the last three shooting stages, earning myself seven minutes in penalty time. I finished in 45^thplace (out of almost 100) with one of the top 25 ski splits. This far surpassed my own expectations. The race was a blast and I’m glad I made the “mistake” of skiing with Neuner and going out too hard in the first lap. The experience boosted my confidence and showed me what is possible.

Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus.com

December 8, 2011
The Greater World of Ostersund

This has been a very special week for me. Yesterday was the first World Cup race of my career; something I’ve been dreaming of and working towards for several years. It was an exciting race in some rather surprising ways, and I promise I’ll write a detailed blog post about it in the next few days. However, first I’d like to share some cultural experiences from today. I apologize in advance for a decline in photo quality- my camera had a little accident and will only work on one mode and without flash (I’ll try to get it fixed over Christmas).

In Europe, the Advent season is often associated with Christmas Markets and many cities have one of these open air street markets. I had never heard of them until Haley Johnson, a former member of the US team, had told me about Ostersund’s Christmas Market, which is held during the 2^nd weekend of Advent. From her description, I knew it was something I very much wanted to see, even though I didn’t fully understand what it was about. This morning, I wandered down to the Market with Laura Spector, Ed Merrins (our team doctor) and Ed’s son Sam. Imagine hundreds of street vendors selling foods and crafts: artisan cheeses, dried meats, baked goods, glögg (Nordic mulled wine), knit socks, felted mittens, leather pouches, word carvings, wrought iron candle holders, paintings, jewelry, angel ornaments, homemade paper, knives with moose antler handles, straw reindeer dolls, embroidered pillows… you get the idea. Ostersund’s Christmas Market is held in Jamtli History Land- a museum village much like Colonial Williamsburg or Vermont’s Shelburne Museum. Between my fascination with historical buildings and the numerous vendor stalls to check out, I could have happily wandered around for an entire day, but I limited myself to an hour and a half.

After returning from the Christmas market this afternoon, I got an invitation to share some glögg (non-alcoholic in this case) and tea at the home of a Swedish couple I had befriended earlier in the week. Nina and Staffan live in a cute house in a nearby residential neighborhood. Staffan is one of the municipal lawyers in Ostersund and did a lot of permitting work for the biathlon stadium. He shared stories of skiing down the streets to get from place to place when he was growing up. Nina isn’t as interested in skiing. Her favorite activities are gardening in her back yard and working on crafts projects. They gave me a tour of a “typical Swedish house” and showed me pictures of some beautiful National Parks in northern Sweden. Someday I’d like to travel to Sweden in the summer and see the Parks.

My final adventure of the day involved a quick elevator ride to the top of a giant mystery tower called Arctura that sits beside our cabins.

When the wind blows (often), the tower shrieks and howls and keeps me up at night. I’d been told that there was a restaurant at the top but I had no idea what the tower’s purpose was beyond that. Today I finally put 2 and 2 together and realized that when the coaches have been referring to “the thermos” on the course, they mean the tower.

Sam Merrins at the foot of the tower. Sam races for Ford Sayre and has been helping the team out a lot this week with race support.

Turns out it’s a giant centralized hot water storage unit for the entire town and its high location ensures good water pressure for everyone below. It is part of a cogeneration power system capable of storing 26 million liters of hot water and up to 1500 MWh of power. The energy comes from burning trash and biomass. Neat.

View from the top

And to end with, I’d like to include this pic I took several days ago. Yes those are poles and skis she is carrying. It’s just a way of life here.

December 2, 2011
Not Quite Winter in Sweden

A month after the rest of the GRP left for Finland, I finally found myself on a plane getting ready to start my biathlon race season. A week ago, I arrived in Ostersund, Sweden for US Biathlon’s first on-snow camp of the winter.   With temperatures in the 40s (Farenheit), rain pouring down, and more of the same in the forecast, we felt very lucky that the Ostersund staff had the foresight to stockpile a tremendous amount of snow last spring (under a thick layer of sawdust). They saved enough to cover a 4 km race trail 6 m wide and still have some in reserve. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will compete in our first race of the season: an IBU Cup sprint. Following that, some of us will remain in Ostersund for the first World Cup next weekend, and some of us will travel to IBU races in Austria and Italy

This is my first visit to Scandanavia and my biggest adjustment has been adapting to the short amount of daylight. Although it gets light around 8:00, we don’t get that soft golden yellow light that I typically associate with early morning until around 10:30. The sun starts to set around 2:30 and by 3:30, it feels like nighttime.   One of my favorite moments so far came one evening as I was walking through town under some street lamps. I was feeling a little bummed about the darkness until I noticed tiny ice crystals on the sidewalk catching the light just right and sparkling in the dark. As I walked, I felt like I was passing through a shimmering tunnel.

We are staying in some cabins at the race venue, along with the French and Japanese.   We share a common dinning room where we are served buffet style. During meals, there is often a giant projection screen set-up with Eurosport TV. We’ve been able to watch XC World Cups (including Kikkan’s 4th place finish in the classic sprint) and our Lake Placid luge friends competing in Innsbruck.

The race course following a midday rainstorm.

One of our favorite pastimes is watching people ski by out our window.

Me, out enjoying an easy classic ski. Photo: Sara Studebaker

My goofy teammates, heading out for an afternoon jog.

With limited ski trails open, we've had the opportunity to explore a lot of the single track biking and running trails. The venue sits at the edge of a large spruce and pine forest. A lush carpet of spaghnum moss covers the forest floor. Blueberry bushes and lingonberries seem to be the other common ground plants.

The weight rooms that we train at have lots of ping pong tables. Ping pong is the team's 2nd favorite sport. Our European coaching staff are especially good at it. Here you can see Lowell and Leif taking on coaches Per and Armin.

Coach Armin shaving down my rifle stock. Some of the modifications I made to it got in the way of the race sponsor stickers, so the material control officers wouldn't pass my rifle until it was fixed.

The Norwegians have gotten a lot of attention the last couple years because of their giant mobile waxing facilites on the World Cup circuit. Apparently the trend is growing.

Hot dog anyone? We've been eating lots of fish, potatoes and pasta, but this caught us by surprise the other day.

We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple weeks early while we were still in the States. Annelies's parent's invited us to their home in Saranac Lake, NY. I'm very grateful that we celebrated early: Thanksgiving dinner in Sweden consisted of fish and potatoes. Photo: George Cook

Mainstreet Ostersund. The city is decorated with many lights. I explored the downtown and waterfront areas last night after dinner. The stores were already closed for the day.

I think this beautiful building must be the townhall or regional government seat.

Ladie's movie night

November 26, 2011
A Magical Morning

When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. The first thing I did instead was to email out to the Craftsbury junior skiers to cancel morning rollerski practice and replace it with ski practice on the Center’s fields.

We convinced Lisa (one of the Center's rowing coaches) to put on some skis and join in the fun.

These apples still taste amazing

A game of "cut the pie" on the upper soccer field

No need for kick wax

We ditched the skis for a short game of snow soccer

By late afternoon, the snow was already beginning to disappear

October 30, 2011
A Magical Morning

When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. The first thing I did instead was to email out to the Craftsbury junior skiers to cancel morning rollerski practice and replace it with ski practice on the Center’s fields.

We convinced Lisa (one of the Center's rowing coaches) to put on some skis and join in the fun.

These apples still taste amazing

A game of "cut the pie" on the upper soccer field

No need for kick wax

We ditched the skis for a short game of snow soccer

By late afternoon, the snow was already beginning to disappear

October 30, 2011