September/October '09

(Haus Helvetia... our Ramsau home.)

100 days… are you serious? Olympic Winter Games my friends are closer and closer!

As is, the start of our World Cup season. In 2 weeks, I will be departing for Sweden to begin the 2009/2010 World Cup season! We get so immersed in our training that time really does seem to fly by.

Beginning of September we had our World Cup trials in Canmore. Thankfully JP and I were pre-selected and the races were purely for training practice. I won the sprint and pursuit, but finished 3^rd in the mass start competition. All I can say about the mass start, is that I am truly happy to be a winter athlete. It was incredibly hot that afternoon and I came down with heat stroke in the middle of the race. I cannot imagine training in hot climate! Unless… I was submerged in water.

In late September, JP and I attended the Summer Rollerski Biathlon World Championships in Oberhof, Germany. It was a very good training race experience as I was skiing very strong despite poor results in the shooting range. I placed 13^th in the sprint with 3 misses and 15^th in the pursuit with 5 misses (49 competitors). Although I did not feel thwarted by the weekend’s results, I do know there are aspects that I need to fine tune before the winter begins. So back to hard training…

From there we drove to Ramsau am Dachstein, Austria for a 2 ½ week ski camp. Ramsau is located approximately 1 hr drive south of Salzburg. It is a beautiful little country town tucked away in the Austrian Alps. Picture…green pastures with cows, horses, ponies and donkeys, quaint mountain houses with overflowing flower boxes, with big beautiful mountains as the backdrop. The Dachstein glacier was… well black. It wasn’t a pretty site. Fortunately, the groomers did a great job making a 7km loop dodging crevasses and the skiing was pretty good. Then it snowed and conditions improved significantly! Our last couple days there the weather turned nasty and the gondola had to shut down due to high speed wind and blizzard conditions. Disappointing because we couldn’t ski, but we did discover a cool hike with a high suspension bridge over a waterfall!

Highlight of our camp was discovering iMovie and the women team's attempt to put together a rad video. I can’t post it just yet… and don’t hold your breath. It wasn’t that exciting!

From Ramsau, we flew home… well not quite. Megan and I had a 3 day stopover in Kitchener, Ontario (just outside of Toronto). Rosanna flew in from Calgary to join us for a sponsorship/fundraising event. The event was hosted by The Gun Club of Cambridge and involved speaking engagements at 3 elementary schools and 2 colleges, a dinner night and a meet and greet day with the sponsors. We had a great time presenting our sport at the elementary schools and I hope the kids also enjoyed it, especially those that had the chance to try the laser shooting system! Hopefully we inspired and motivated another generation!

After a busy promotional weekend, it was time to head west for home...