Joanne Firesteel Reid, CBC Biathlete: Snow Mountain Ranch

So many times I have been asked what it was like to with an NCAA title, and so many times I have been asked where I think I'm taking the sport of biathlon, how long I'll stay, what I'm hoping to achieve. This is my answer to both questions, in a long, drawn-out monologue.

What I like about football is energy. Energy and fluidity. I know football is a "boring" American sport with a lot of stops and go's and changing of teams, but it is deeply fluid at its base. Four tries to go 10 yards. In essence, an extremely simple game, in practice a complex one. Momentum is a powerful force of nature, and momentum is the strongest force of football. A team driving forward, fighting to the last man to gain that last yard builds momentum. And the fan base catches the momentum of the team and turns it to energy. Energy, in turn, drives more momentum.

Consider the home of the Seattle Seahawks. The twelfth man of the Seattle Seahawks is their fan base. Eleven players on the field, and one measurably, scientifically deafening roar. The twelfth man is so loud that the actual decibel level in their home stadium is just barely under that of the deck of an active aircraft carrier. The Seahawks so honored their beloved twelfth man that the number 12 is borne only on fan jerseys, and never on the field. Their gift in return? Energy. Ferocious, unbridled, passionate energy which aids the momentum of their beloved team.

This I feel when I enter the active football stadium of my alma mater. I rarely (never) watched a game as an undergrad, but I always drifted by the chaos around and in the stadium just to witness it. This is the case of any stadium of any sport with fans who love it. The absolute and overpowering passion makes the stadium electric.

If I enter a stadium full of 10,000 Colorado Buffaloes, I feel who I am. The times I fought for my brothers and sisters in the black and gold echo within the roar. My path has turned away from being totally surrounded and immersed in University culture, living and breathing academia and team competition. But I am still the person who did those things, who I am now was shaped by what I did then. And 10,000 people dressed in black, on their feet in salute of our real live buffalo who tramples the very grass of the football field, has a way of slamming that reminder into your face like an knockout punch.

It is odd to look back. If I choose to give, I give my whole self. If you had cut me open, I would have truly bled black and gold. For the eleven other members competing on the NCAA team, I would have done anything. For those left behind, I would have done everything.

What was it like to win an NCAA championship? This is what it was like. Six alpine skiers watching from the sides, exhausted. Their battle was over. Three Norwegian men, clad in the Colorado black, silently watchful. Their battle was yet to come. Two of my sisters, next to me at the start. Our battle was now. I was the twelfth man. I had a Buffalo sister at each shoulder. Their gift to me? Energy.

I didn't win because I needed to win, I won because they needed me to win. I simply became one name in a long legacy and history that stretches back before I was born and will continue on for decades. Those were my brothers and sisters, my acquired family and my adopted heritage. All I could give them in this moment was a single victory, and lay it at their feet in offering. So I did. Those three Norwegians, it was their turn to go. My gift to them? Momentum.

I don't exactly know where I'm going, but I know who I am, and where I was. Surely that is what is most important. No one is their worst race any more than they are their best race, which is a truth few like to face. You are simply the average of your races, barring outliers. That's the mathematician in me. The athlete in me has no other thought than a promise to give, to give my whole self until the numbers of the race results reflect what I believe I am capable of. To do something so well that I can say I mastered it, and then, like my mother before me, turn down a new road with new challenges. But most importantly, do it joyously, passionately, and with integrity.

If you just can't get enough of my dithering on, you can find me on Fasterskier Here and the BNS magazine Here .

And without further ado, here's a whole bunch of pictures from Canmore in no particular order.