An Upward Trend (UPDATED w/ more photos!)

Good news from IBU Cup trials! After my first race (blog post) did not go as well as I had hoped, I got better and better over the next three races, and kept climbing the steps of the podium until I found myself on top! (For full results, check out my results page.)

My shooting improved from 40% of shots hitting the target in the first race to 50%, 55% and finally 70% in the last race. In practice leading up to these races, I would say that my average shooting was somewhere around 60%, so I was glad to stay fairly consistent with that percentage in the race environment. I also felt much better skiing towards the end of the week. I think I just needed a few races to shake off the cobwebs from a long training season. It warmed up (from below 0 degrees to above 0 degrees) which helped with the ski speed a bit, too.

I just about doubled the total number of biathlons that I've done in my life at these trials, so I am still enjoying a very steep learning curve. I learn so much from every race, and can apply that knowledge and experience right away toward the next one. 

Casual wear for outing to grocery next door.

Happy with my 2nd place in the mass start.

Winning smile on top of the podium!

Face I made when Tara asked me for my winning smile...

Happy and cold.

There are a number of different race formats in biathlon. Read the Wikipedia article on biathlon race formats for a good explanation of these. At these trials, we did two sprints, then a mass start, and then another sprint.

Interesting things that happened in the mass start:

• They started the women just a few minutes after the men, and at one point Mike, Ethan and I were in the penalty loop at the same time... "Misery loves Company."
• I "cleaned" (hit all five targets) for first time ever in a race! It is amazing how much easier the 2.5k lap feels when it doesn't begin with an extra 150m penalty loop.
• It was so windy that the barrel of my rifle was blowing all over the place, and in one standing stage, I only hit one target and it was not even the one I was aiming at.

My teammate Susan Dunklee, who is a member of the US Biathlon team, was competing at a World Cup event earlier this winter in Sweden during which the women's race was stopped part way through due to wind, and the men's race was cancelled. Susan told me that US biathlete Time Burke's "strategy for standing that day would have been to aim at the middle target and keep his rifle level. That way if a gust caught him, he would just move right or left  (not up or down) and still have a good chance of accidentally hitting a different target." My race was not that windy! But you can imagine was shooting in any amount of wind might be like.

A picture from the women's race that day, before it was stopped

So after 4 trials races, I ended up second on the ranking list. The US Biathlon team is only bringing one woman to the IBU Cup this year, so unfortunately I just missed the cut-off! But I am very proud of how i did and look forward to doing more biathlon racing.