Since this is my first post I guess I’ll have to quickly bring you up to date on my summer so far!  I started out this spring being named to the National A team.  Most of the members on the team choose to live in Lake Placid, NY, home of the Olympic Training Center.  The level of support there is what makes it such a great place to live.  Not only are there superb sites for training, there is also a cafeteria(very important), full medical team, recovery center, rollerski treadmill, etc.  So in mid-May, the day before Lake Placid National Team camp, I packed up all of the belongings that I would need, and made the move to the OTC.  The move went very well, the camp went very well, but after getting all settled in, I was off again!

This time I was off to the far Northern biathlon center of Ft.Kent, Maine to train at the Maine Winter Sports Center.  There is a beautiful facility here, with almost 3km of paved rollerski trails, and a full paved range, the training for biathlon is excellent!  Not only that, but the terrain of “The County” is quite hilly, so everything from Road Biking, to Running/Hiking, and Mountain Biking is great training.  There are even quite a few nice lakes to get out and paddle on. Ft.Kent will be hosting a World Cup race this February, so maybe training here for a few weeks will pay off?

This last three weeks, I have been in a gigantic volume block of training.  With almost 80 hours of training over three weeks, this will be the most I have ever trained in such a time.  On average, most days have been anywhere from 4-7 hours of training, everyday.  Yesterday was one of the longest days.  I went along with the MWSC team on Tuesday night for a little camping, and on to run/hike to the summit of Mt.Katahdin on Wednesday.  It was over 7 hours of moving, but we got a good start at 6:45AM so we had plenty of time!

There are 2 more days of this training block, at the end my teammate Russel Currier and I will make the 8 hour drive back to Lake Placid.  We have a much needed off week with minimal training coming up and a short shooting camp, before the next training block takes off! I will be back on soon, to update on our shooting camp that takes place next week!