Estonia Bound!

Another few weeks have whizzed by. As an athlete, the passage of time is always an interesting thing. The continuous cycle of training, racing, and recovery has it's unique way of marking each day's passage, especially during the winter when I spend much of my time on the road moving from race to race.

Since returning from Europe at the end of January, I've been busy. I was fried when I finally made it back to Lake Placid. After over two months on the road prepping for and racing trials competitions it was time for a few days off. I put my rifle away for a few days and focused on getting caught up on sleep, laundry, e-mails, etc.
The first two weeks of February I put in a volume block and on the weekends raced two North American cups in Jericho, VT and two at home in Lake Placid, NY. Despite the rainstorm in January that wiped out much of the snow pack in the east, the crews worked overtime to get the tracks ready for racing. We had excellent conditions in Jericho and I pulled out a third place finish in the sprint race and came back to win in the pursuit. The following week in Lake Placid I narrowly won the sprint and in the pursuit put together a solid shooting day to win. I was really happy with the racing, especially because those races were the first competitions all year that weren't trials races so I was able to use them more for training purposes than strictly racing. I enjoyed experimented with some technique ideas on course and faster range approaches.

Last week I took a (very) quick trip out to Vancouver to watch Sara and the rest of the team compete in two events. I arrived back home in Lake Placid this past weekend and jumped into a short relay format race on Saturday and then focused on volume and threshold training through yesterday. A I write this I'm sitting in the Albany, NY airport getting ready to catch a flight to Estonia for the European Championships. We have four races next week and I'm looking forward to getting back in the start chute.
Before I sign off I want to express my condolences to the family of Jim Bowles, President of ConocoPhillips Alaska. Jim was killed in a snowmachining accident recently and I know that he'll be missed.