Catching Up on the News

FIRST WORLD CUP PURSUIT!

I raced in my first World Cup pursuit on Sunday. Since I finished 2 minutes and 30 seconds behind the winner of the sprint on Saturday, I started 2:30 after her in the pursuit. That's how the pursuit works. So all 60 racers start within the first three minutes or so, and the first one to cross the finish line wins. It is exciting to have all those people on the course and the range at once. By shooting well you can pass a lot of people while they are in the penalty loop, and vice versa! I started off well, missing only one target in each of the first two (prone) shooting stages. But I am not as good at standing yet and missed a total of 5 shots in the two standing stages, so I spent a lot of time doing penalty laps while people passed me. I started the race 40th and finished 52nd. One thing I was very glad about was that I had the 43rd-fastest ski time. Before this weekend, my best World Cup ski time rank was 63rd, so when I had the 39th-fastest time in the sprint, I had chalked it up to a fluke because of the weather. Not so! 

WEDNESDAY RACE START TIME:

Today we have the Individual race. The first woman will start at 6:15pm local time/12:15pm EST. I am bib #97 so I will start at 7:03:30 local time/1:03:30 EST. As always, you can watch live on Eurovision. The women's Individual is our longest event; it is 15k total, with four shooting stages (prone, standing, prone, standing). Instead of skiing penalty laps, there is a 1-minute time penalty for each miss.

I MADE THE PAPER!

Here is a great article from Glenn Jordan at the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine). Glenn has reported on my athletic endeavors since I was a cross-country runner at Cape High School. For this story he did a really nice job explaining-- in remarkably few words-- the sport of biathlon and my history in it.