Once a year the US biathlon board gets together for a meeting and to celebrate the accomplishments from the year before.  Volunteers, athletes, and coaches are recognized for their many different feats and everyone enjoys good food and great company!

After our interval workout in the morning the board showed up at the range so we could teach them how to shoot!

I think everyone hit a target!  The brave ones even tried to shoot standing!  It was fun having everyone on the range.  Coaches and athletes running around, lots of “This is the best rifle on the team!”  … “No THIS is the best rifle on the team.”

Here former athletes (Bjorn and Walt) duke it out in a mini biathlon race!

After everyone tried their hand at marksmanship we headed up to the day lodge for lunch and then off all over the valley for some great activities.  There was golfing, fly fishing, a hike up to stewart’s falls, and a horse back ride at the sundance stables!  Most of the women’s team ended up on the horse back ride which was a blast!  There were 13 of us in all, each paired up with a horse that fit us seemingly well.  I was on Romeo.  We hit it off right away!

After our ride we headed back to our houses to get ready for dinner in Park City.  (Yes it was a very very busy day!)  We gathered at the High West Distillery and Saloon for food and our awards banquet!  It was a great mix of the young and the old(er), with board members, the national team, paralympic team, and several of the clubs and junior program that are in town to train.  We ended up at assigned tables…and low and behold I was in  fact at a “kids table”.  I was the only national team member tucked away, I had a blast with my little table of youth boys, but part of me wondered why I couldn’t mingle with the rest of the adults.

The awards for the evening for the athletes panned out something like this.

Junior Female Athlete of the Year: Corrine Malcolm
Junior Male Athlete of the Year: Casey Smith
Junior Marksman of the Year: Kelly Kjorlien
Senior Male Athlete of the Year: Lowell Bailey
Senior Female Athlete of the Year: Sara Studebaker
Senior Marksman of the Year: Sara Studebaker
Sports Man of the Year: Leif Nordgren
Paralympic Athlete of the Year: Sean Halsted
Paralympic Rookie of the Year: Dan Cnossen
Coach of the Year: Jonne Kahkonen

It was a long but fun day for everyone.  I know when we made it back from Park City I fell into bed and was happy we got to sleep in!

I’ll leave you with some pictures from our classic ski up Wolf Creek Canyon.  We even found some snow up at the top!