Biathlon Camp in Utah

Susan and I spent the last few weeks in Utah at a training camp with the biathlon team.  Here are some pictures!  When we first got there, we had some beautiful western weather, and there were still some bright colored leaves around on the aspens and things.  I’ve never thought of the west as having good foliage, but I was impressed! It was definitely beautiful.

I was really happy to be exploring the mountains in our new “back yard”.

Rollerskiing up west canyon on a beautiful sunny day.

We went on an awesome hike from the top of Guardsman’s Pass. Andrea Henkel–one of the top German biathletes–is dating Tim Burke, one of the U.S. men, and so she came to this camp. It was great to get to train with her some and also just get to know her.

Suz and I were so match-y in our new Ibex shirts, we decided we just had to take a picture. This is from the a summit along the Wasatch Crest trail.

We also had two rollerski races, which were qualifiers for a November training camp in Sweden. We woke up the morning before the second race to this. It was postponed until late in the afternoon, when most of the snow had melted off the rollerski track.

On my last day in Utah, we went on as awesome hike that went partway up the back side of mount Timpanogos. It was snowy and beautiful!

We were happy that our team fall training jackets are bright orange–there were lots of hunters out there!

Amazingly, this picture only took Annelies one try to take!

I had a lot of fun in Utah–its a great place to train.  There’s a nice roller loop right at the range at Soldier Hollow, and also countless opportunities for adventures more or less right out the back door.  It was also fun to have the whole biathlon team together in one place, including our European coaches.

I had one good time trial, in which I missed 3/10 shots–not really good shooting, but I skied well and it was a good race.  Then in my second time trial I missed 4 of my prone shots–thats not good!  It was a windy day, and I’d forgotten to check the wind flags and take clicks to adjust for it.  I realized my mistake as soon as I took the last shot and started towards the penalty loop.  Dammit!  But that’s biathlon…the difference between a good race and a bad race could be just one or two dumb mistakes.  It can be frustrating, but its also so rewarding when you actually hit the targets and ski fast too…so far I’ve really only gotten little tastes of that, but I know that it’ll happen one of these days!