Big snow flakes, Frank Sinatra playing at breakfast, and shooting guns.... No better way to bring on the winter than breaking in the race skis with World Cup Trials and dumps of snow! I had the pleasure of racing both Tuesday and Friday this past week at Biathlon Canada WC Trials against Canada's best. Polar conditions were an added challenge to Friday's competition as Tuesday offered bluebird skies and crisp corduroy contrast to Friday's offering of a blanket of wet snow. Naturally, the weather resulted in anything but a firm track (winning time was 6:40 slower over equal distance).
I had a reasonable race on Tuesday, but spent significant time between Tuesday and Friday looking for spots to reduce the gap on course as I felt I had more to give! In the range I was looking to make up 2 targets and calculated a few seconds here and there on various segments that I could realistically move through quicker...
The preparation I put into Fridays race paid off in the form of confidence as I arrived on race site thinking, "What a beautiful day to race!" The sloggy track was no doubt a challenge but nothing I wasn't ready to embrace. At the end of two days, I ranked a spot out side the 5 man World Cup team. Not to be disappointed, I will use the result to motivate improvement and will have my first chances early December competing on the IBU Cup circuit in Austria and Italy!
Happy skiing...Now... where did I put my passport?
