Soon it begins. On Tuesday I will be traveling to Sweden to start another winter of World Cup biathlon racing. It means four months living out of a duffel bag and braving airports almost every week… The thrill of putting on a race bib and standing on a start line in front of TV cameras [...]
The scene at the “Singletrack Shootdown” Photo: Judy Geer A week ago, we hosted a biathlon race at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center as part of our Oktoberfest celebrations. The event included a beginners’s pre-race shooting safety clinic and featured separate races for beginners and for experienced biathletes. Additionally, participants could chose to either compete running [...]
For the past couple weeks, I have been training in Germany with the USBA national A team. We have spent time at some of the winter World Cup venues and shared the ranges with European national teams and club teams. The first couple weeks were in Bavaria, training at Ruhpolding. This week we are training [...]
One of my long time biathlon teammates, Laura Spector, recently decided to not continue competing this year. Laura has always been an awesome training buddy who can be counted on for the longest biking or hiking adventures and I’ve missed having her around this summer. She was also instrumental in starting the forward momentum of [...]
We have less than a month until the London Summer Olympics begin and anticipation is building across the globe. Last Wednesday, June 27th, we celebrated Olympic Day right here in Craftsbury, Vermont at Hosmer Point summer camp. About 60 kids aged 9-14...
While visiting my family for Father’s Day, I ran across an old scrapbook in my childhood bedroom. One gem that I unearthed was a NENSA Newsletter featuring a story that the Sargent sisters and I had written together many years ago. It brought...
There is a lot to love about being on a mountain top. Refreshing breezes, a flow of puffy white clouds that tow splotchy shadows across ridge lines, and a lush carpet of contrasting peaks and valleys stretching across the land. I can see every shad...
What do skiing, mountain biking, sunburns, snowstorms, rainbows and lots of roundabouts all have in common? They can all be found in Bend, Oregon in the month of May. For the first time in recent memory, the US Biathlon team sent a group of athletes ...
Although the new training year is well underway, I’d like to take little time to look back on the month of April. For a professional ski racer, it is our vacation month, the one time of year when we can stop thinking about training or racing for more than a couple days at a [...]
Following World Championships in Germany, the biathlon circus packed onto 3 different charter planes headed for central Russian and the final World Cup competitions of the season. I was excited for the chance to see Khanty-Mansiysk after hearing so much about it, but I was also very tired from the previous [...]
I like to describe biathlon as an emotional rollercoaster. For athletes, the highs are very intense and the lows can feel devastating as we seek to have the “perfect race.” I rarely come close. Many different pieces must come together on the same day. I lucked out on a special day in [...]
Biathlon World Championships Sprint 2012 A beautiful day in Bavaria!
It’s only mid February, but most of the season’s biathlon races are over. 8 World Cups are already done. Most recently, we were racing in Kontiolahti, Finland. In spite of the brutal cold, the team had some of its best results ever with a 6th place mixed relay and 5 athletes in [...]
Since January 1st, the biathlon World Cup circuit has given us a tour of central Europe. We started in Oberhof, Germany, a biathlon mecca that attracts over 30,000 fans. Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic, site of the 2013 World Championships, hosted us the following week and treated us to some [...]
Knock, knock, knock! On my first morning in Oberhof, Germany, I’m jolted out of sleep by someone rapping on my door. I crawl out of bed and poke my head out into the hallway. “Good morning sleepy head!” my teammates Sara and Annelies great me with a laugh, “you really ought to [...]
This is a belated post about my experiences leading up to my World Cup debut last week in Ostersund, Sweden. Looking out the window… there are men setting up a television camera on a raised platform. They angle it so it will catch racers hammering over the course’s last uphill. Volunteers are unraveling sponsor signs, stretching [...]
This has been a very special week for me. Yesterday was the first World Cup race of my career; something I’ve been dreaming of and working towards for several years. It was an exciting race in some rather surprising ways, and I promise I’ll write a detailed blog post about it [...]
A month after the rest of the GRP left for Finland, I finally found myself on a plane getting ready to start my biathlon race season. A week ago, I arrived in Ostersund, Sweden for US Biathlon’s first on-snow camp of the winter. With temperatures in the 40s (Farenheit), rain pouring down, and [...]
When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. [...]
When I woke up today, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I wanted to rush around the house and wake everybody up and show them the beautiful snow outside. Unfortunately, there was no one to wake up except Emily, and I figured she’d appreciate being able to sleep in on her day off. [...]