Alive, yes we are. Alive and well!

We made it.  After a little over 7 hours of pedaling Annelise, Sara, Susan and I rolled into the OTC parking lots and promptly laid down.  I just knew I didn’t want to be standing or much less sitting any longer.  And I so laid on the sidewalk with my helmet on and didn’t move. It was wonderful.

It was terribly hot yesterday.  …and yes at points it was miserably hot.  I found myself missing the head wind when ever it would disappear briefly.  Patrick and Jonne were great.  They kept hoping ahead of us with the cars and were always there to refill our water bottles right when we are were running out.  They provided great encouragement for us all the way up keene hill.  And trust me, I needed it, and it worked.

100 miles, 8 water bottles, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a snickers bar later I was back in Lake Placid.  Back to air conditioning. Back to a comfy bed. Back home?  maybe.  I’m happy to be back, and happy to be in one piece.  I’m a little sore and a little tired…but very pleased. happy. and content.

If you don’t hear from me in a few days…call the authorities.  search and rescue. my mom.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic but tomorrow the women’s team will be biking back from Jericho VT via back roads to Lake Placid NY. …and its suppose to be the hottest day of the week!  Just our luck.  The boys did the same ride on monday.  It took them 7 hours in the saddle.  For now I’ve got my heart set on 9.  calling it safe.  playing it safe?

Our camp is coming to a close here in Vermont.  Its about that time.  Living in the army barracks seems to lose its allure after the first humid night or so.  I have to say…we’ve had a really great camp.  Some good, some not so good.  Yesterday the whole team struggled a little bit, fatigue was setting in, tired limbs, tired minds.  Shooting was not going well all around.  But after a good nights  sleep we were all back at it again this morning, and things went really well.  Days like today make you feel like you are improving.  That you are taking those strides forward.

So for now (since I might feel differently during and after the bike ride tomorrow) camp has been wonderful and productive.  The national guard men and women (but mostly men) we’ve shared the ethan allen base with this past week have all been super nice.  We’ve taken over a little coffee shop down the road to get our internet fix and caffeine injection almost every day we’ve been here.  The Village Cup, or “athlete” cup, has been wonderful…although its good we are leaving…their baked goods are much to tasty and far too bad for me.   One can, or rather should, only eat so many mocha brownies.

I’m looking forward to getting back to lake placid. Yes the air conditioning is a plus alright.  Time to catch up with some people.  Catch my breath. Take some really good naps.  I’m prepared to have my body completely quit on me tomorrow, but I’ve got my fingers crossed nothing goes too wrong.  See you on the other side, mission implausable….I mean mission super fun bike butt is just around the corner.  But first….Bear for dinner!!!!

Got a little something special for you!!!  The US women’s biathlon team took up the US  Women’s ski team video challenge over the past week and put together a little something.  Its got a lot of fun things from training and racing over the past year.  Please check it out!

Finished up our second day of time trials this morning.  It was another good effort.  Looking forward to a little soccer and ultimate with the mens team this afternoon!

In years past Jericho has been just that.  A black hole.  As you approach the Ethan Allen training center your cell phone service dwindles down to nothing.  You can get internet if you sit just right on the steps of the public library and there aren’t more than three computers fighting over the signal.  It was always that dark place that we would journey to once a summer to meet up with fellow biathletes from all over the country.  You camp out on your bunk bed.  You battle the heat and the humidity.  Its a standard I’ve learned to accept and expect.

This year it isn’t much different… its not the annual flocking of athletes quite yet, that will be in a few weeks still.  For now its just the national team.  We aren’t staying in the traditional barracks either.  We are in a different building that is a little more dormitory styled with two or three of us to a room.  There is carpeting!  You know…the essentials.  I was surprised however when I went upstairs to our little kitchen last night and found a TV.  …that works!  Not that we spend all our free time glued to it.  It just seems so out of place compared to the picture of a “Jericho experience”.  Caught a little golf.  A little news.  Who knows, maybe we will even catch some of the USA vs. Japan game this weekend!!!

We had our first little time trial this morning.  It was hot and didn’t feel especially great, but I survived.  Cleaning my very last stage of the mass start might have been the only thing that got me through that last loop.  But I made it.  It wasn’t pretty.  It wasn’t perfect.  …it wasn’t awful either.  Another one tomorrow morning, so I’ll just keep plugging along.

I was recently prompted by a fellow full-timer to really look at what I do.  To write about what happens behind the glorious trips to europe.  To dive bellow the surface of my rollerski rotted hands… To explore how I make my dream job happen.  To devuldge what its really all about.

So here I go.

I’m a biathlete.  Thats my job title.  Professional.  with a not so professional salary.  I dropped out of school to take a chance on a sport most Americans have never even heard of.  Someone said, “Hey you can ski, think you can shoot?”  That was it.  The first race I did was the summer running sister verison of the sport.  I missed 16 out of 20 targets.  Ran an extra 2.5 km’s in penalties.  But I was hooked. hooked on this red-headed step child of a sport.

I drove my beat up, green box on wheels across the country to Northern Maine to join Maine Winter Sports Center in hopes that I might play catch up to a sport I was already way behind in.  I spent the summer seeing more moose than people.  Living in spare office space in the upstairs of the ski lodge at the race venue.  A single room for four girls.  We affectionately called the room the second sauna of the building during the hot summer months.  When it got too hot to sleep upstairs we would drag cot mattresses to the basement of the lodge to sleep on the tile floor.  I spent a good month sleeping on the ground there, in a public building, spending mornings waking up to people coming to venue to get in a walk before work.  It was glamorous.

I spent the season wondering if I would do well enough to move up.  I had my heart set on making the national team.  There was NO plan B.  I guess you just have to believe right?  It was a stressful, anxious spring.

I knew I was lucky.  My parents supported my decision to put my education on hold and pursue my passion.  I’m still lucky.  Although after a year of no school work, exams, finals, papers part of me did miss it… and I knew I needed a little something to balance the athletics in my life.  So for now I’m taking one to two classes a term.  I was actually giddy when I ordered my text books a few weeks ago, and I’m thrilled to have work due!  Nerdy I know.

This spring I moved again.  This time to the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York.  I’m currently a member of the US national biathlon team, and for this oppurtunity I am incredibly grateful.  Because I am a resident athlete here I have virtually no living expenses.  Its a life saver.  …because I have virtually no money.  I spent most of my bank account buying a new rifle this spring.  So we live frugiley.

My car has a rear brake light out…its been that way since christmas.  Yes I’m poor and a threat to society.

So for a post labeled reality… my life is anything but real.  I live in a very surreal world.  Back in bozeman at school I was one of the crazy student athletes that spent time running in the woods and skiing in the mountains.  Back in Wisconsin I’m that crazy girl who is always out training, always at a racing event, always somewhere else.  But here in Lake Placid…at the training center. I’m normal.  So very normal.  We all wake up, train crazy amounts of hours, eat odd quantities of food…its surreal.  Its home.  …even if it is far from the real world.  Its my world.

The answer. Yes.  I have the world’s greatest job.  I might not be “finically stable”…but I get to do what I love, every day, and thats worth it!

After a long travel day back to the eastern portion of the country I was welcomed back to Lake Placid just in time to celebrate a beautiful 4th of July!  Town was buzzing.  The weather was beautiful.  After a semi-disasterous interval workout in the morning (tired tired travel legs) I spent the day soaking up the sun, listening to great music, eating tasty food.  Took part in the local parade, where we looked very patriotic, and listened to some more good music.  We watched the firework show over mirror lake from a “private” roof top perch…it took a boost from a hand rail and a shove to get up there but it was well worth it.

I’m transitioning back into training again after last weeks rest week at home.  My body is still a little lethargic but my mind is amped to be moving again.  This morning I headed out early to get in a little ascent and quick descent of mount marcy!  I was early enough headed out that I had to clear spider webs all the way to the dam.  However, I can now confirm that the “spider stick” works.  After a minor panic attack being covered in webs I ran with a stick and just sort of swatted them out of my way as I went.  Effective and only sort of silly looking…maybe?

I passed a lot of hikers on my way to the summit.  I would let out an “excuse me” followed by a “goodmorning” and in exchange would get “you’re running up the mountain? you’re crazy!”  It was even better on the return trip, “You’re still running!?”…and I would say, “Yep, its my job!” with a huge goofy grin on my face.

I made it back to my car.  Out of water for the last three miles.  Covered in mud despite several baby pit stops to splash in all the streams along the way but still grinning.  …and no worse for ware.

Four hours check.  Food. Shower. Power Nap. Afternoon coffee break (always a good thing). and then back out on the skis for two more hours of classic fun.

Six hours. check.  A satisfying days work.  Oh the perks of being a full time endurance athlete right?

I’m plum tuckered out.  My legs are questioning my need to punish them.  But I’m happy and stoked to get on my bike in the morning for another four hours before the rain rolls in!

After a very long travel day (thanks to my team mates who made sure I got to the airport!) I arrived back in the Midwest.  Its beautiful here right now!  A very wet spring and early summer has made everything very green.  I just realized the other day that I wasn’t home at all last summer, and so I’ve been marveling at everything I missed out on.

My arrival in Hayward just so happened to line up perfectly with Musky festival.  Town is a zoo.  Driving is horrendous.  Who would have guessed such a little place could be so hopping?  You would think have grown up here and watched the yearly influx of seasonal guests I shouldn’t be surprised…but somehow, it gets me every year.

My brothers and I escaped the madness of Hayward on sunday and headed up to Duluth for a great show at Clyde Iron Works!  Jack’s Mannequin was the headliner with two great bands opening for them, Steel Train, and Lady Danville!  The music was great, the bands were all awesome and incredibly down to earth.  I love musicians that really interact with their audiences, it makes you feel connected to the show and connected to the music…its really an incredible atmosphere to be a part of!  Personality is likeable and much appreciated.

I’ve only been home for a few days and I’ve seen so many old friends.  This past year I was home at very odd periods of time and so everyone was always in school.  We’ve spent some good days on the lake.  I got way to much sun (my nose might peel for weeks!)… now all I’m ready for is a good movie night with some of the girls and a bonfire!

Now I have a list of things that need to be painted.  Yes, I know, Welcome Home…to mannual labor!!! Things to tape, things to paint.  Enjoy the great weather we’re having!

Yesterday when the rest of the team took the day off Anneliese, Patrick, and I head down to Keene for The 7th Annual Great ADK Trail Run.  It was the perfect day for a running race, sunny, but not terribly hot.  (well not at the start anyway!)  Because the race is run on the AT trail it has be carried out in a very nontraditional way.  They bus racers in with two different shuttle starts.  8 am and 9 am.  Once at the trail head we all sign in and are assigned a start number…which may be permanently markered on my arm!  They then start one racer at a time at one minute intervals until everyone is out on course.  Yes, you’re right.  This is infact a time trial, 11.5 mile trail run.  There might not be another race out there quite like this!

With the wet spring we’ve had, and more rain the night before, the course was wet, slippery, muddy…did I mention wet?

The course was technical, the race was tactical.  And I spent a good portion of the race laughing.  There were no mile markers, the occasional course marker, I was going into this race completely blind…I was a little nervous.  What else could I do?  So I laughed.  I ran the first 4 miles pretty conservatively.  I didn’t feel great, so I used the first section of the race to warm up.  My calves were tight and I felt super awkward sliding and slipping over roots and rocks.  I hit a few trees, did a few face plants.  There was alot of mud and plenty of puddles, who couldn’t be happy?  At one point the trail turned into a waist deep puddle, at mile 7 the course turned into a bog.  At which point it was all I could do to keep my shoes on!

As the race went on I felt better.  I could move more fluidly, there were even moments I felt agile and quick!   After lots of uphill the course turned down, at this point my legs were near jello and it was all I could do to keep my legs under me.  When the road finally became flat again my legs were toasted and it was all I could do to keep them moving forward.  Brutal.

The finish was located conveniently next to a river and one by one the tired muddy finishers stumbled down to the water and sat in the water listlessly, soaking up the sun.

After the race there were the essential three B’s…barbeque, beer, and a band.  It was the perfect way to recover after one heck of a run.  I remember walking around a beer in one hand and a cup cake in the other hand thinking…This is the life!  The results came out and it turned out, running completely separate races, Anneliese and I finished 1 second apart.  That’s right after two hours of racing I lost and she won by one second.  Pretty cool stuff.  We both walked away with some awesome prizes!  Who has two thumbs and is the proud new owner of a really sweet Patagonia wind breaker? This girl!

It was a wonderful little saturday!  It was a race took being gutsy and having a good sense of humor.  It was a beautiful day, and I got to spend it with some really great people!  The event was smooth and well organized, and the locals were welcoming and supportive.  The event organizers were really stoked to have such strong fields in both the mens and women’s races and I’d like to think we put on a good show!

If you’d like to check out some results you can find them.  at this little website!

If I get my hands on any pictures, I know they are out there somewhere, I will put them up.

More innocent words were never uttered…  But it was those simple words that turned today’s  four hour run into 6 hours of fun and adventure!

This morning when I woke up I knew I didn’t want to bike.  Mentally I just couldn’t put myself in the saddle for that long pushing pedal stroke after pedal stroke.  The weather was beautiful and to be honest it would have been a perfect morning for a really lovely bike ride.  But I just wasn’t in it.  So when I looked across the breakfast table and said, “Hey you want to go run with me?”  I was ecstatic he responded with “Yes.”

Wynn’s company would be much appreciated for the four hours that lay ahead of us, but more than anything I was worried that if I went by myself I would get lost and my day would end much later with a search party or worried coaches.  We started off from the trail head off an access road on our way into the woods, trail after trail.  The goal? get up Marcy and then some.  Check. Check. Check.  The weather was perfect, not too hot, a nice breeze up top.  The trails were not super muddy, and the sun was shinning.  What more could a girl ask for?

We summited Marcy in good time, talking along the way, greeting the other hikers we would come to with big GOOD morning(s)!  After taking in the view and snapping a few pictures of our triumphantly mismatched socks we turned around and headed back down the trail we came up.  There were some falls we passed on the way up that we wanted to check out more on the way down so when the trail split we decided to take some time to check out the water.  …and so it began.

There were ooos and ahhhhs and plenty of “oh that’s pretty neat!”.  Soon enough we were taking off down stream.  We had time to kill before we had to meet another team-mate back at the trail head…so away we went.  We hopped and slid from rock to rock, there was bush whacking, log shimmy-ing, and lots of splashing!  This carried on for quite a while.  Laughing, slipping, splashing, and repeat.  Then it sort of hit us, “we should be getting near the trail intersection soon…right?”  a little farther down stream.  “We should be getting near that trail now?”  30 mins late…45mins….an hour…shoot?  The bugs were getting worse, I totally slipped on a rock and ate it face first into one of the deeper pools of water. Ugh.  finally after nearly 2 hours of river running we saw something amazing…a bridge!  What did a bridge mean?  A trail!  Great Success!!!!  and much relief!  Jeeze louise was I happy to see that bridge.

Another 30 mins of running we made it out past Marcy Dam and to the trail head.  Lucky for us our team-mate had decided to nap in his car and wait for us.  Now that’s team work!

Our return to the OTC was filled with frantic eating, a healthy quantity of ice cream and lots of water!  Of course it wasn’t enough, I showed up to Ultimate tonight a little beaten up, bruised, and scratched…but of course, oh so worth it!

We had our first time trial this morning!  …okay, technically its the 2nd one of the year but I had to sit out the first one with my leg injury.  Now that I’m up and fully functioning its nice to not have to sit on the side line anymore.

The time trial was a 7.5km sprint at our little roller range by the ski jumps in Lake Placid.  Its not an easy place to shoot, lots of uphill into the range.  Its a hard approach, I’m struggling to keep my heart rate down, my head together, my breathing in check…I come into the range and I’m panting and trying to point my rifle at a seemingly tiny target 50 meters away!

It was ok.  I was the first girl out on course with Andrea starting right behind me.  My goal…stay in front of her for as long as possible.  I tried.  I made it 4 of 5 laps out front.  But with fast skiing and faster shooting she caught me and I did the best I could to hang on to the finish.  It wasn’t great.  It wasn’t horrible.  It was a really hard effort.  I shot better than I would have this time last year. Missing 1 in prone and 3 in standing.  So all in all.  Things are heading in the right direction.  We took our blood lactates after the finish and I was amazed to see mine. 14.6!  Hot dang is what I thought!  Hot dang is right.  It was a real hard effort, the first slobber of the season.  Check. Out of the way!  Now that is a good feeling!