Antholz, Italy

I am now enjoying a week off from racing after competing 8 times in the last 18 days.  I decided to stay right in Antholz, Italy after the last races for my off week.  Antholz is the perfect place for the week with great Italian food, beautiful mountains, sunshine and perfect ski tracks right out the front door.

 

The last week of world cup racing went pretty well.  I was happy with my 12^th place in the sprint but I was also a little frustrated because I clearly could have reached the podium with better shooting.  The same could be said for the Mass Start on Saturday where I had the best ski shape that I have had all winter but I did not combine this with solid shooting.  This is why biathlon can be such a frustrating sport!  So much has to come together on the same day to have a chance at a top result.  But I guess this is also what makes it so special on those days when everything works out.

 

After a few easier recovery days, I am back to a full training schedule for the week.  With World Championships still over a month away, it is important to keep the training volume high in order to be in top shape when it counts.  Training longer hours is no problem when you are in a place like this!

 

On Monday I will leave Italy for Norway and the next round of the World Cup.  Of course I enjoy training but I am already looking forward to the next race!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nove Mesto

Another World Cup week is in the books here in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.  After starting off with a disappointing Individual race, I rebounded with two solid races in the sprint and pursuit.  I finished 11^th in the sprint but fell back to 16^th in the pursuit when I struggled in the last shooting stage.  Although these are not the top results that I am looking for, it was good to be back in the World Cup points after a tough last week in Oberhof, Germany.

Nove Mesto will be the sight of next years World Championships so this week was really important for us to learn as much as possible about the venue.  We faced challenging winds in every race here this week so that is something that we will definitely have to prepare for over the next training season.  On a positive note, our ski technicians did a phenomenal job with our race skis this week in some very tricky conditions.  Apparently these conditions are quite common here so it’s nice to know that we are off to a good start for these tracks!

I feel like my ski speed has been improving with every race so I am really looking forward to our races next week in Antholz, Italy.  Antholz is one of my favorite venues and I hoping to finally put together a good ski race with some solid shooting.  At the very least, I am looking forward to some good Italian food!

Treadmill Time…

I arrived back home for the Holidays on Monday night and will be home for a whole six days before heading back over to Germany.  I have not been home for the Holidays in three years so it feels great to be back and see all of my family and friends.

Unfortunately, winter has not cooperated so far this year and we still have no snow in Lake Placid.  I spent two hours this morning roller skiing on the big treadmill at the Olympic Training Center looking outside at the pouring rain.  Hopefully the weather will turn around soon but it looks like I will be spending a lot of time on the treadmill over the next few days.

I can’t believe that we are already done with the first three World Cup stops!  I definitely had some ups and downs during this period but I was happy to get in at least a few solid results.  For some reason I was a little up and down with both my skiing and shooting during the first few weeks.  I think I have the kinks worked out now though, and I am looking forward to the rest of the season. We still have a lot of racing to go and the most important races are still yet to come!

Thanks for checking in!

Snow at last!

I have been in Ostersund, Sweden preparing for the start of the World Cup for a little over two weeks now.  Despite the unseasonably warm temperatures, the skiing has been good enough to log some quality training.   The Swedes are definitely pros with track preparation for early season skiing.  They have prepared the tracks with snow they saved from last winter because the temperatures have been far too warm for snowmaking.

My training for the first week went very well and I felt like my body was recovering nicely from some of the big hours I put in this fall.  Unfortunately, I came down with a cold on Thursday and was forced to take a few days off.  I am already feeling a lot better and am back to some light training.  I was disappointed to miss a few hard training sessions so close to the start of the World Cup but hopefully a solid summer and fall of training will make up for this.

We finally received some unexpected snow today that added up to about 5 inches.   It was not enough for the venue to open any additional trails but at least it looks a little more like winter over here now.  It was weird to skiing on the tracks next to green grass for the past two weeks.

Once again I had a rather uneventful Thanksgiving.  It seems the Swedes are not very into celebrating Thanksgiving for some reason…  It was slightly painful to video chat with family back home as they were fixing up Turkey and endless pies while I was forced to stick with the traditional Swedish cuisine of fish and boiled potatoes.  Speaking of potatoes, last year I kept a count of how many potatoes I ate while I was in Sweden for three weeks.  This year I decided to call it quits after I reached seven in the first two days.  It was simply too depressing knowing that I had at least another 30 or 40 to go.

Despite my cold, I am looking forward to getting things started here with the first World Cup on Wednesday.  It is definitely a long season but I am hoping to get things started on the right foot here next week!

Utah

I just arrived home after an incredible three-week training camp in Utah.  One of the reasons that we always travel to Utah for October training is that it is one of the few places in the World with a great venue that still has consistently warm weather.  Utah did not disappoint this year and we were welcomed with three-weeks of consistent sunshine.  This was by far the longest stretch of sunshine and blue skies that I have ever seen.

Besides the incredible weather, I also had a very solid three weeks of training.  I was able to train more hours with a higher quality than I have managed during our Utah camp in the past.  Now I am feeling nearly ready for the start of the racing season in just one month!

I am now back home in Lake Placid for a short two-week training block before we take off for Sweden on the 14^th.  This is always a very busy few weeks for me because I have to organize my life for being away the rest of the winter.  Luckily, this year I have planned to come home for Christmas for five days, but other than that I will be on the road from November 14^th until April 1^st.  This is just part of the job though, and it is something that you have to embrace if you want to have any success in biathlon!