Two exciting things happened yesterday. I did my first official biathlon race of the winter, and I peed in a cup in front of a stranger! Your choice as to which was more exciting for the spectator.
The race was at the low end of the average range for me. The skiing felt so hard the whole time! It is amazing how hard the first few races of the season can feel. There is a big difference between being in good shape, and being in race shape. I still had the fastest skiing time of the day among the women, but I would like to be much faster. And if I am going to miss six targets, I need to ski much faster!
I missed the last two shots in prone, but they were both good shots, meaning I didn't do anything really wrong, and the bullets were just on the edge of the target. The important thing for me (and any biathlete) is to focus on the shooting process so that it is exactly the same every time, whether in practice or a race. I think I executed well...just didn't hit the targets!
In standing, I am simply not yet at the point where I can get my rifle to settle on the target at all when I shoot with a highly elevated heart rate. It was only about a month ago that I achieved that level of stable "hold" while standing perfectly still and breathing normally. So basically when I arrive at the range 20 minutes or so into the race, it looks to me through the sight as if the targets are jumping all over the place. My job is then to focus on relaxing and pulling the trigger as gently as I can, hoping that I happen to be on target when the bullet goes! (For more on this kind of shooting methodology, check out this blog post I wrote on my team's website last year.) Unfortunately in yesterday's race, I was only on target when the shot went off for one out of five shots. So I skied four penalty laps before heading out on course for my final 2.5k loop. I was pleased that I still managed to come in 3rd, but certainly hope to do better skiing and shooting in the next three races!
Then came the fun part: because I came in the top three, I got to go to US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) drug testing. It was funny but I will spare you the details.
Today's race was postponed because the high was -10 degrees. It warms up tomorrow so we will race Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
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