“You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning within your own.” – Eleanor Doan

In May I thought…280 days… wow.

The significance? The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games!

Yes that is all. I suppose there will always seem like there is not enough time. That is why everyday is important. Everyday an opportunity! If each training session is accomplished with this attitude, then I will be ready!

I had an excellent break from biathlon in the tropical islands of Maui and Kauai during April. Soaked in the sunrays, surfed (or tried!), swam, snorkeled, and fully embraced beach life!

By the end of April I was back on snow in Whistler at the Olympic venue in Callahan Valley. We had absolutely beautiful sunny days with amazing ski conditions. It was a great start to the training season. Then before I flew home, I spent 3 days in Vancouver at the Olympic Excellence Series, a conference run by the Canadian Olympic Committee for Olympic and potential Olympic athletes from each sport, and the coaches/support staff. It was an excellent weekend filled with inspiriting stories from Ray Zhab, Johann Koss, Sylvie Frechett, Adam van Koeverden and great workshops. I left feeling refreshed, inspired, motivated, and determined. I dream that one day, I too have an amazing story to tell that will capture the next generation of young people to believe!

Later in June I learnt…

Inspiration can come in so many packages. In June during a rest week, I drove to my hometown, Red Deer, and spoke to grades 1-5 at my old elementary school (Ecole Mountview Elementary School). The kids loved my biathlon simulation exercise, (we “raced” a 7.5km sprint race), and my Olympic story. And I loved their sound effects, their excitement, and numerous questions. I was inspiring them, but they were motivating me and driving my passion! The 4 hrs I spent at the school literally flew by! I left feeling as though I had consumed 20 cups of coffee!

In July, Canmore had some wonderfully hot summer days. I made sure to tick off the list of usual fav summer activities: licking ice cream, fruit smoothies, barbeques, dinning al fresco, swimming, sunbathing, and even some rock climbing at the local crags. The annual Canmore Folk Fest in August was another great relaxing summer highlight.

Training has been awesome this year. Besides the usual intervals, strength and roller ski workouts at the Nordic Center, we have also been up to Highwood Pass a lot for long roller ski sessions. Highwood Pass is a long gradual climb in Kananaskis where we often spot grizzly bears during the month of June… an exciting experience when you are moving so slowly uphill on skis! (yes we do all ski with bear spray and pray that that bear is more interested in the berry bushes than a skinny skier…) We had a fun bike and roller skiing camp in British Columbia in June. Definitely had a chance to work on excellent short tan lines. Highlight included Scott wearing his bike shorts up to his butt in order to fix his tan lines… this only made him look like he was wearing a diaper while riding! In July we headed to Whistler for 2 weeks and did solid training up in Callaghan. Highlight was a team building session involving drums and lots of them! We made some amazing rhythms as a team. Well that may be arguable! August was spent training in Canmore, with an emphasis on field tests and preparation to our World Cup trials in September. I got away from small town life and biathlon for a few days to Vancouver in early August. Definitely needed and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! Stopped in Summerland for a swim and it felt like I’d flown way south as it was 35 degrees. So glorious!

As the summer has officially come to an end, the temperature dropping, and the leaves changing, I am reminded of the immediacy of the World Cup season, and more importantly the Olympic Games.

Therefore…

“The only thing that relieves pressure is preparation.” – Tom Kite

(crowds in Khanty-Mansiysk and along the river in Trondheim)

Whistler World Cup, the test competition for Olympic Winter Games, was the next set of races after World Champs. It was a pretty nice experience for us Canmorons, taking a 1 hr flight, instead of a 9hr to the competition venue! Our team stayed right in the Whistler Village, as did the French and Norwegians. Conditions were good, the venue ready, but definitely it was missing the atmosphere of large crowds in the stadium and along the tracks that many European World Cups encompass. I should hope that at the Olympic games there is a full house!

In terms of results, not a good week for me… I ended up 49^th in the individual (15km) and 48^th in the sprint (7.5km). Our team finished 9^th in the relay. Despite the substandard results, it was a good experience for getting used to the course and area prior to Olympics, and was awesome to have some great friends on the sidelines for support.

That Sunday we flew to Norway. The Trondheim World Cup was next. I had never been to Trondheim before, very exciting, as often the circuit is predictable and repetitive! (Which of course is great for the fans, and also we as competitors get to know the track very well.) Trondheim is a beautiful city located in central Norway where the river Nid flows into the Trondheim fjord. It was lovely to walk or run alongside the river. I had a good sprint shooting 9/10 and placing 20^th but a rough day in the pursuit finishing 47^th.

Monday we were on the move again, this time to Russia, with all teams taking the 5hr charter flights from Trondheim to Khanty-Mansiysk. A usual on the World Cup circuit, always ending with a great finishing party! I placed 24^th in the sprint and 33^rd in the pursuit. Saturday being my last competition, I watched the mass start competitions on Sunday and then intently focused my energy on dancing all night. The World Cup season was over! Maybe not the results I was aspiring for, but it was an improvement from my mono year!

A night of dancing, laughing and good times came to an end, a couple hrs of sleep, and 6am we were back on a charter to return to Munich. Then back to Canada for holiday time!!

Do not despair, I have not been swallowed by snow demons. I did attend World Championships, and then Whistler, Trondheim and Khanty-Manyisk World Cups. Life seemed to have consumed me and blogs forgotten about. Much apologies!

2009 Pyeongchang World Championships, (South Korea), were a good experience. Pyeongchang is a county in Gangwon province, in the Taebaek Mountains region and about 180km east of Seoul. Everyone, as in athletes, coaches, support staff of all the Nations stayed at a huge apartment building called Green Pia, located right at the base of the YongPyong Ski Resort. This is very different from other World Championships and World Cups because teams are usually scattered in different hotels with maybe 1 or 2 other teams. So it created an athlete atmosphere similar (yet on a much smaller scale!) to that of Olympic Games.

Our competition venue was a short 10 min drive away. Pyeongchang lost bids for 2010 and 2014 Olympics but they are bidding again for 2018. Because of this, they have a World Class biathlon facility, and a Cross Country facility and ski jumping (still in building phase) all in the same area.

Right before the competitions began a number of misfortunes arose. One being a terrible rainstorm destroying the fairly thick layer of manmade snow. The day before the sprint, no one was allowed to ski on the icy remains besides 400m around the stadium. Most athletes chose to go for a run in the rain and dry-fire in the athlete room (as we were also unable to shoot). In Korea, all of our rifles stayed in a locked room at the venue when not in use; therefore, there was a specific room on site for athletes to practice dry shooting. I don't think I have ever been in such a busy dry-fire room with the chaotic noise of click, click, click!

I did not have the results I was hoping for finishing 30th in the Sprint, 24th in the Pursuit and 35th in the Individual. However, we had a good relay placing 9th. The stadium is plagued by a lot of wind gusts and therefore, many athletes (unfortunately including myself) had difficulties in shooting... but really, one cannot have excuses in biathlon. Biathletes have to be able to master difficult conditions in order to succeed!

Leaving Seoul, our team took the opportunity to do a half day tour in Seoul. We visited a beautiful Buddhist temple and museum, a market street, enjoyed a traditional Korea meal... kimchi anyone?, saw a sea of identical high rise apartment buildings, highways with 10 lanes across, crazy candy makers and many other aspects of daily Korean life. The food was definitely an experience, but being adventurous I tried it all. (and yep... still not a fan of kimchi!)

Then we took a long flight back home to Calgary....

After a little over a week in Canmore it was off to Whistler for World Cup #7...