A few photos from Utah

A good photo of the team

It got a little washed out but before that i really liked this photo

Just one more photo of nice scenery

Utah report

I have just returned from our last off season, dry land training camp of the year in Utah. We were training at Soldier Hollow (the site of the 2002 Olympics). This was my first time at Soldier Hollow which was very cool since 2002 Olympics was one of the first winter Olympics that I really remember watching with much interest. It was cool for me to be at the place where Ole Einar Bjørndalen won all four Olympic Gold medals in biathlon. Not only its historical significance but also everyone that I met and got to train with while I was there was a real treat. Soldier Hollow, which is just outside of Park City (where the USSA Center of Excellence),is where a lot of the nation’s best cross country skiers spend some time. The Andy Newell was there for a few days, along with Noah Hoffman who are both on the US ski team. The whole Nordic Combine team was there one day including Olympic Gold Medalist Billy Demong. It felt like every other day we ran into Olympians.

The venue was great (but to be expected as a former Olympic site). It boasts the nicest roller ski loop in the country and in general is a great place to get ready for the season. But we did not just roller ski every day at the venue. We took advantage of everything that the surrounding area had to offer, including going on hikes both in the mountains outside of Park City and at Sundance resort (site of the Sundance Film Festival). I came to understand why the film festival was put there and why everyone loves going so much. The scenery in the area was just beautiful. We tried to get to the ridge line so that we could look down on the valley but that would have required another hour hard hike and we are no longing in the summer when long hikes are the focus. We are now in the fall were intensity workouts like intervals, time trials and races are the priority so we had to sacrifice the better view because we had a time trial the next day.

We did three time trials while there. One went well, one I was pretty tired and the last one I broke my pole and I was pretty much out of it. I was pleased that I was able to win one of the time trials that included 3 of the 4 top Juniors in the country even though it was at altitude which seems to affect me worse than most. I did not have the fastest ski speed but made up for it with good shooting and won 17 seconds over Eliot Neal.

Utah was great but I am heading to Canmore, Canada in a week or two to get on snow and that should be even better.

Photos

Here we are skiing up east canyon outside of Park City.

The guy in the background long boarded all the way down then ran back up.

Utah

We made it to Utah and it is awesome. It was great to change it up with everything from housing arrangements to skiing on a different ski loop (Roller ski loops with ranges are often very small so they can get somewhat boring if you are on it every day). This training camp is great to really focus on training 24 hours a day and it is good to get some altitude training. We are going to be here for 2 weeks so we will get used to the altitude (which normally takes about a week) so we will get some easy distance work and some technique work until we get used to the altitude then we can get some really good physical training. This is so important to get everything physically and mentally ready for the season as we are really getting close to the start of the season. My first race is on November 16^th so that is just a little over a month from now. Right now things are looking good for the season with everything skiing and shooting going really well. I will try to put up some more posts with more information about how the camp is going and some pictures of the awesome scenery.

I seem to talk a lot about the weather in my blogs but I guess that kind of makes sense in a way as I spend so much of my time outside that the weather is a very legitimate concern. That being said, it was started to get cold here in Maine and the rain twice a week or more only gets harder to stomach as it gets colder. But luckily there is an out. On Sunday we head to Utah for a two week training camp. I hear the nights are just as cold but the days really warm up which should be nice. Besides the fact the weather looks pretty good I am excited to be at Soldier Hollow, the site of the 2002 winter Olympics, with both the men’s and women’s national team. A lot of the upper level biathletes in the country normally are in Utah for some duration during October. It should be fun to interact with the Seniors men and see what it takes to race at on the WC and the Olympics and it will be a good test to compare my progress to the other Juniors in the country. The main goal of the camp is to continue to improve shooting and skiing with the added benefit of being at altitude which increases red blood cells which will provide more oxygen to muscles in need which will really be helpful in the skiing aspect of biathlon. I will give a full account of Utah while I am there along with some pictures.