This is the latest installment of Kevin Brooker’s journey into the land of Biathlon. Kevin has documented his experience over the course of his first summer of training and has now finally gotten up the good part – getting on snow….
Season Wrap-up
The end of the season is always bittersweet. Warm sunshine and soft snow make skiing fun but the desire to “train†has faded away. A bit of effort was needed to keep motivated and train for the US and North American Biathlon Championships hosted by the Mt. Itasca Biathlon Club in Colerain, MN. There was a two-week hiatus between the NorAm Cup race in Valcartier and the Nationals.
Getting to the Nationals was a nice compromise between family and pure race immersion. We all flew into Minneapolis where Jill and the kids stayed with family friends and I was able to head to the races unencumbered by familial duties.
The first day of competition was the Sprint race. Three ski legs separated by two shooting stops. My race went okay finishing 5th out of six entrants. My ski speed was slow enough so even clean shooting would not have netted any medals. Admittedly, I was hoping for a podium spot.
The pursuit on Friday was a breakout performance. No, I didn’t medal or even move up in the standings. Still 5th place. The breakout was managing the race well. I shot 1,1,4,2 (biathletes count misses). Not great but many pieces of race management fell into place.
What felt annoying about the day but turned to be a hidden gem was having such late starts. I had time to watch races and learn. It was amazing how slow the elite men entered the range compared to their on-course speed. Another interesting aspect was watching the amount of time spent getting setup prior to squeezing the trigger. They futzed with the rifle and made sure everything was just right. I take this same care during practice but tend to forget it during competitions.
During the pursuit, I began slowing down 150 meters earlier than during the sprint. I was right behind another racer and counted seconds (nice thing about releasing the pressure for results is I could spend time learning) from the time I slowed to when we hit the mats. I lost seven seconds. Multiply that by four and it’s the equivalent of one P-loop. Drop one more target by slowing early and it’s a wash; 2-plus and it becomes a fantastic investment in race time.
The early portion of mat time was used getting the rifle perfect, the position the same as during practice, breathing, and shot with a 2 breath rhythm used at home. While it felt I was on the mat forever, my actual range time (poles down to poles up) was within seconds of one minute; my nominal range time.
Before my events I went out on course to be the relay of info person to the athletes from the coach. Standing on the last real hill prior to the range (maybe 1 k out) were a bunch of other coaches giving info/encouragement/corrections. What I saw was amazing and put a few ski pieces into place.
One coach was giving out technique info. “Keep you head up. Look at the top of the hill. Hips forward. Get those hands up. Tempo.” Basic stuff I know. What was fascinating was when the athlete listened they noticeably sped up. During my race I told myself the same things and just flew up (relatively) the hills and also didn’t feel as hammered upon reaching the top. Suddenly I was skiing faster. Not enough to catch the fast guys from Washington but it gave me hope and demonstrated the potential to find speed by not working against myself.
