Antholz, Racing and Training before World Champs

Hi CBC,

It turns out I'm not a very good blogger (surprise).  We are finishing up our long stretch in Antholz- just one more week, and then off to Hochfilzen for World Championships.  Somehow, when I arrived here in the very beginning, way back when the World Cup was here a whole two weeks ago, my standing shooting took a vacation.  I'm not sure where it went, but I'm guessing someplace tropical.  

As best I can describe what happened, I'm an incredibly high energy person.  I like to sleep, a LOT, but as soon as I wake up I'm going. I don't really nap, and I don't really slow down much (ever).  Some point on the road between Germany and Italy, my energy levels overloaded.  You know that freshman stunt where you drink an entire pot of coffee before your first final, before you realize that's a horrible freaking idea, and then you get more and more jittery and it feels like your eyeballs are about to shoot lasers?  That's roughly how I would describe this feeling.  Every time I stopped skiing to shoot I felt like I was going to leap right out of my boots at the massive amounts of jittery energy raging through my body.  And really, it didn't stop much when I was skiing, either.  I felt like I was skiing like a sort of spastic fish, arms and legs all disconnected, and my glide phase totally gone.  And downhill cornering when your legs are shaking like you took a straight shot of adrenaline?  Yikes! Well, it was one hell of a ride.

For a week and a half, this lasted, before, during, and through the races.  That's a damn long time to be riding what feels like an epic caffeine high, with no way to slow down.  I took a lot of days of off shooting after the races here, in attempt to re-center my shooting, specifically standing. It has slowly, ever so slowly, come soaking back into me as I've resettled back onto planet earth.  

Things that re-centered me...

-Firstly, my amazing family often gets up to watch me race, and from the West Coast that's one heck of a time change.  Every time I clean a stage they all get a piece of chocolate.  They are happy skiers themselves, and they really couldn't care less how often I miss at standing.  They're going to be so mad I put them on the internet :D. 

Since Truckee got that ENORMOUS snowstorm of doom, they’ve just been playing in the snow for the last couple weeks (at least that’s how it seems from the pictures).

My mom, conquering the world

My dad, proving that all black is still the most intimidating ski outfit. Fact.

My second oldest brother, Carl, who apparently ran into some wet Sierra snow.

My oldest brother, Garrett, who has never let anything in life bring him down.

-Susan freaking Dunklee.  Seriously, that woman can do anything.  I have what I would best describe as an occasional breathing problem, where it feels like a mountain landed on my chest.  Susan came into my room when I was having an argument with said mountain, and sort of having a loser-like spazz on the floor.  In the next ten minutes, I was changed, up, moving, walking, and breathing like a normal person again.  

I got to do a bunch of workouts with Susan this week, and I decided that I was just going to shoot as fast as our rockstar, and screw where the bullets actually landed.  This worked out really well about half the time, and about half the time I probably sent some fliers right over the mountaintops.  It's really good practice, and really fun to get to shoot with one of the fastest shooters in the world (Susan) and one of the best in the world (Maddie).  Anyway, riding the ski tips of Susan was really fun, because her strongest skiing sections are totally opposite than mine, which forces me to get technical and press sections that apparently I usually just slack the hell off in.  See, this is why you should have friends who kick your ass.

We locked up her crazy though, we'll unleash it for World Champs

I re-f**ked my shoulder on the bench press.  That's the last time I'm EVER doing that workout.  Either I have fragile shoulders (? tendons?), or it's maybe just not the best workout for me to be doing in the middle of ski season, regardless, I don't care what the training plan says, it's out.  Another thing I learned from Suz- stand up and fight for what you believe in.  Anyway, it's not nearly as bad as last time- I can get my arm over my head! I've been giving it a break on easy days so that I can still engage it on intensity days, and it has been soldiering on.  So, all eyes turn to Hochfilzen now.  

-MOUNTAINS.  Woohoo!  

-Also, you guys.  The emails poured in telling me they forgave me for singlehandedly tanking the American relay.  I promise I'll do better, and a special thank you to CBC sharpshooter Julia Collins for sending me a sweet email and some tips on how not to miss :). 

A random assortment of pictures:

This is how we attend morning lectures at 8am.
Me and Susan just chillin in the back getting outraged at bad statistics because we're NERDS. 

Recovery drink..........?

Russell was pissed that I podium swept the high scores on his Tetris
So.....he finally beat me. 

Susan has a grill sponsor, so we did some biathlon tailgating during the men's race

Picture from my friend Gwilbaud of France, who always has a smile for me when I'm warming up, something nice to say after the race, and is his own entire amazing cheering section, singlehandedly.  

This guy... this guy actually kicked me off my mat during zero, because it wasn't as laser-sculpted flat, or something.  I also got booted off my mat during pre-race zero by one of the overly aggressive brass sweepers.  I mean... which one of us is really more important? Not me, apparently!

Grilling pizza out on the deck (courtesy of Susan's grill sponsor). Or, as my mom said,
"A Hawaiian pizza cooked by orange munchkins outside in the snow😋"

Let's just say... we're sort of derpy at picture taking, but we skied to the top of the pass and it was lovely.

That time I started less than an hour after the first starter, and actually got to warm up on the course.

That other time I got to ski a lap with MDH herself.

See you back in Colorado, someday!!

-Joanne

Ruhpolding and our first relay

Well, in case you missed it (I did!), I didn't race in Oberhof because I got the norovirus, also known as the stomach flu.  It was a lot of deja vu, as I got the stomach flu at almost the exact same time last year, along with Maddie Phaneuf, and the two of us raced the IBU Cup anyway, and it was about exactly as comfortable as you'd imagine.

A successful quarantine (did not leave room for three straight days), some long and gentle classic skis in the woods, and some easily digested food later, we traveled south. We arrived in Ruhpolding where the weather was warmer, the trails were slightly easier (but not by much!) the food was better (maybe? I never once went down to breakfast, lunch, or dinner in Oberhof, but instead depended entirely on the food drop-offs of my friend Russell Currier, who not only fed me but scored his first world cup points of the season in Oberhof), and the crowds are bigger.  I like Ruhpolding because it's familiar to me, and is the site of my first world cup, so regardless of the trails that don't really play to my strengths, it holds a special place in my heart.  It's becoming a little easier to travel places now that I'm learning where all the paths to the start are, the rifle check and the ski checks, and I don't spend ages searching for the bathroom.  For instance, in Sweden I spent about ten minutes trying to find the secret door that led to rifle check and eventually gave up and skied into the range to find the start, the tunnel leading to it, and work backwards from there.  I am oddly grateful to Adidas for giving us the electric orange jackets purely because it's so much easier to find our coaches wherever they may be.

We adopted Maddie from the IBU Cup to field our first relay of the season, which didn't yield the best result ever, but there were no penalty laps from our team, which we considered a victory.  The snow was deep and slow, and skiing was a battle.  With a relay team that had never once skied together, and various levels of preparedness across the board, we look forward to moving up in the field in the next relay.

Germany actually requires you to lock up your rifle when you are..... we're not exactly sure, here.... not dryfiring? Can you get it out and clean it? Can you touch it? Luckily it came with this fantastic picture explanation.

What I get from this is that you can just tie a rubber band around it
 and then lock the rubber band

When I first arrived in Germany I had the wrong serial number on my paperwork, which caused a lot of head shaking and clucking, but they let this American problem child into the country anyway.  Wonder if they'll let me leave!

I encourage you to check my website (HERE) if you want to know where in the world I am (my brother requested that I turn on "find my friends" so that when those pesky people asked him where in the world I was he could just know instead of having to look at that gosh durn world cup schedule, but that seems a little creepy in my opinion), I tried to put in estimations of where we're training and racing.  Plus, I linked in my instagram so you can enjoy my journey of bad picture taking and #excessive #notatallwitty #hashtagging.


Countdown to sprint start!

Courage.....Courage for our friends.

 When the night hours so far surpass the daylight hours that light seems but a memory, and the sun struggles to even bring its lower half into view, then you have arrived in the north country. The darkness is still rising, and the light is badly losing the battle- the winter solstice has not yet come, and still the sun graces the sky for fewer than six hours. It is brighter to ski under the stadium lights in the full darkness of afternoon than it is to ski under the sun at high noon. 

But when your goal is only to traverse forward as best you can, as fast as you can, and pause to be as precise as you can, the existence of natural versus artificial light is hardly relevant to the matter at hand. A matter of priorities that does not lend itself to being in warm, sunny places. 

Still, the darkness leaks into your soul. It lets out a silent, wailing cry when the dusk comes, as early as two, and then fades ever so slowly into blackness. By half past three, the sky is already dark as night. Though you may not realize your own personal attachment to the star that grants this planet life, it is there. And when you are limited in your ability to see it, hard are the days. 

But soon, as is the nature of life, the memory of darkness disappeared. We traveled south into warmer weather and longer daylight hours, delightful cuisine and cheaper goods. 

If you missed it, the greatest female American biathlete finished the race week with only one total trip around the penalty loop and an appearance in the flower ceremony. Slovenia is graced with a fast downhill range approach, one that lends itself to great shooting.  Susan is graced with courage, something that lends itself to amazing results. Combine these two forces and the result is obvious. 

Those who think these things don't matter did not witness the the electricity that arcs through US biathlon when we watch Susan triumph. They do not see how much an American smile in a flower ceremony inspires us all to go a little bit harder, dream a little bit bigger. What Kikkan did for the US Ski Team, Susan does for us- instilling the quietest of all attributes within us: belief. As ugly as the orange adidas uniforms are, as eye-shearing as the jackets are to behold, it is true what they say, a smile is all it takes to make a moment, a person, beautiful. 

So I bid you, my friends, go about your day with just a touch more courage. Be a little bolder, a little braver, dig a little bit deeper. Because I have witnessed the fierce courage of our very own American heroine. Without a sponsor, without the resources of the best financed teams, without a rollerski range at the place 4,000 miles away that she calls home, she put her fighter's heart into the race and came out victorious. 

I am late on these words, and we are already less than four hours to the next start, but I hope that they ring true again in this Slavic country that still bears the scars of the Soviet Union. Those that think there is no luck in this endeavor are fools, but there is little we can do to change our luck- but much we can do to be braver. 

Be brave!

-Joanne

Accidents Happen

Accidents Happen

It was one hell of a day in Östersund, and the wind was howling through the range. I was standing in the start area, where a staff member is assigned the mind-numbing task of safeguarding your rifle while you're warming up. They also shove your warmups into a plastic bag for you so it can be taken to the finish line, because this is the World Cup, and we can't be expected to walk twenty meters.  As one of the late starters, I had the privilege of witnessing what can best be described as absolute chaos- the top seed was missing wildly. Kaisa came through and took a minute and a half to hit only one shot, Susan came through and found herself with four minutes of penalties in prone, Doro, Gabi..... it was madness. 

So this is the plan that appeared in my head. I'm fantastic at shooting slow, I've been doing it since the beginning (i.e., last year). In fact, there's nobody on the World Cup who can shoot as dang slow as I can. If everyone on the entire World Cup was shooting just as slow as I normally did, then if I took my time, I might be okay. 

 I journeyed into the starting zone, where I shoved my electric orange jacket backwards onto my front, awkwardly trying to lift it up so rifle check and the transponder installation team could check my bib number. Why they can't just look at the leg numbers, God only knows. You would think a girl who manages to cram two base layers under her race suit, top and bottom, wouldn't need to have her jacket on until a minute before the start, but you clearly thought wrong. My hood was blowing up into my face and making me entirely blind, and suddenly reduced to a bright orange world, I was basically the height of prepared. 

At about 45 seconds to start I disentangled myself from my jacket and hurled it at the US rifle and warmup guardian, in a pathetic attempt at throwing that only an endurance athlete can really manage. At thirty seconds to start I was ushered into the start box, a most ridiculous feature of the World Cup that ensures you stand in front of the sponsor logo while the camera films your start. (Well, they film the starts of people who wear VASTLY more makeup and/or ski much faster than me). The sponsor, and I am not making this up, was called Hörmann.  Awkward. 

I charged out of the start like a slug. Into a massive headwind, and given the knowledge that if I redlined in a 15km where shooting had become even more critical than before, I wasn't exactly flying. You know how sometimes Walter sets the course so you have to go up that enormous hill of doom from the Nordic center and then go STRAIGHT up into the range? Then the only way you can hit a single target is to basically go so slow you're going backwards, since we're above 9,000 feet and our club president is a sadist. That's the race strategy I was channeling. Okay... I didn't go THAT slow. That speed is reserved completely for the SMR range approach. 

The ice was staring to show under the deep sugar of the snow. The day before, the ice was so thick and fast it became dangerous, so the race organizers ground up the top layer, only it had also begun to snow. With an hour to start, they were still frantically trying to remove some of the foot deep layer that had appeared, composed of rugged ice chunks that didn't stick to each other. The turns then, had become extremely skied out, the sugar shoved to one side, and the sheet ice beneath became the footing for the turns. Conservatively, patiently, and without losing my footing, I wound my way through the course. 

I came into the range for the first prone, drifting into the lane I zeroed on, and checked the wind flag. It was up (surprise), and it was up far. I clicked, three right, and slowly started shooting. Five down, and off I went. Again, patiently, it had become a race of shooting and very little of skiing, the leaderboard was showing crazy numbers of misses. Back into the range I came, trying to remember the shooting order, the wind flags, the zeroing lane. Slowly, onto the standing mat I went, only missing one, and off again. The turns getting even icier, and the course getting ruggedly difficult through the deep, sugary snow. Back down the S turns into the range.

 The wind flag was up, but the other way, so six clicks I went left. I took my magazine out. The wind flag dropped. Back three right I went, and dropped my elbow down. I looked down at my rifle- saw right through my rifle to the mat- I had forgotten to load the magazine. Back up I went, loaded, back down on the mat, the wind flag fluttering. And slowly, shot by shot, through some odd miracle, five for five. Off I went again. 

I came in for standing with agonizing slowness.  I knew good and well I had unusually good shooting for the day. The wind was still swirling through the range, tugging on my barrel, my new barrel weight helping to steady it. Two misses, and I leapt right off the mat, charging forward, only seconds later I realized one of my poles was no longer in my hand.  Was I supposed to go back for that? Do they give me a new one if I leave it behind? Am I allowed to leave things in the range? I turned around. Back down into the snow, I lifted the pole up, slid my Leki strap home, and disappeared out of the range. 

Back around the course, the icy turns, the deep snow, back up the hill and down the S turns into the finish. 

And that, my friends, is how I scored my first World Cup points. By channeling my inner slug and dropping my pole. 

Here's some quick World Cup updates:

Our team doctor at the Olympic Training Center is so bad he misdiagnosed a broken toe and didn't send it to X-Ray. I'm saying it on the internet, because that's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard. Leif's toe is, in fact, broken- it's also swollen to twice the regular size- and he flew back to the States. He squished it in a treadmill when it got lowered back down to the starting position from an incline- OUCH. 

That brings our team down to six people and not enough for a full men's OR women's relay (Sean is still recovering from mono). I came up with the most brilliant idea that Susan should start in the men's relay- she'd be awesome and fired up and ferocious racing in the men's field. Our chief of sport wasn't thrilled by the idea, but she was. 

We stayed in this hotel that had a freaking spa in it. Two saunas, ice bath, contrast foot bath, steam room, and outdoor hot tub. Way cool. 

Apparently you can just call the race organizers and get a shuttle to wherever you dang well please. It's a BMW- SURPRISE. I found this out when Laura Dahlmeier called a shuttle to take her to the Snus (Definition) shop from the venue. What a character. 

Susan and I went to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in Östersund. We learned exactly no Swedish from reading the subtitles, but the movie remained in English, thankfully. 

Germany, Finland, and Kazakhstan were all staying in our hotel. That means I ate lunch and dinner with some of the most epic names in biathlon. Too bad I haven't learned their names yet ;). 

The final countdown

Hey CBC,

It's really the final countdown here, I'm headed to the venue in two hours.  If you can't figure out the new IBU website (I can't).

Live results, and I assume video will be here:

http://biathlonresults.com/

Clare, Susan, Tim, and Lowell are repping the US in the mixed relay, and Leif and I will hold down the fort for the single mixed.

Now, if you click on the race name, then click "Reports," and then "Extended Start List," you get to this ridiculous list of numbers, which drops these awesome stats on me.  HEY LOOK GUYS ....THE IBU SAYS I'M FAST. Okay, that's all I needed to say.  (Who missed all those standing targets?)

Nah, actually I just dropped into this update to inform you guys that my rifle weighed in at 3.495kg on the official scale (weight limit 3.5kg!).  I'll have you know that my scale in the good old 303 (that was the area code for Boulder back in the good old days) gave me a whopping measurement of 3.522kg, so I don't know what the heck is up with theirs.  In any case, with the addition of .005kg of duct tape (the scale actually only went in increments of .005, so this is possibly only .0025kg of duct tape), my rifle passed!

It's gorgeous, right? 

Off to shoot some sh....stuff.  

-Joanne

P.S.  I attempted to coalesce all the pieces of my online presence for y'all in the succinct form of a website HERE.  Most importantly I hooked in my Instagram so you can enjoy a bunch of really bad selfies taken on a bad front camera.  Appealing, right? 

Firesteel out.

PPS.  HEARD THAT LIVE STREAM IS NOT WORKING IN THE US CURRENTLY. Change your IP address, here's the top five free ones as given by this random website.  http://codegena.com/top-5-free-vpn-software-to-hide-ip-address/

For mobile, try WhaleVPN.

Disclaimer, haven't tried any of these! Heading to venue.

Football, random pictures of Canmore, and links to more interesting things

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.

If you follow Susan Dunklee this'll be a repeat, but it was the best picture I took all camp.

Clare and I spent our off day in Calgary, and I wandered over to a park

Hanging out with the newest member of the Biathlon family, Ophelia Bailey

Clare and sports psychologist Sean McCann teaching Ophelia how to adjust for wind

Susan LOVES hiking, and here we are scaling the first mountain of the day

This was before I was totally exhausted,
because we got to the bottom and Susan goes: hey, let's climb that mountain too!

And so we did

Because we can

Two days ago at SMR- holy smokes it was hot out.  Trying to get my prone shooting under 30 seconds,
with moderate success- I'm plateauing at about 29.

The Morning of November Ninth

My dearest CBC,

I, like much of Colorado, California, the Northeast, and all those who hoped and believed in kindness over hatred, woke yesterday as if in a dream.  The United States Biathlon team had a tangible cloud of pain hanging over us, reflected in silences and faces carved of stone, and in some cases even tears that ran freely in the morning, evidence of a still absorbing shock-wave.

Susan and I could not bring ourselves to race in the American race suit on that day of all days. A sliver of hope and the shadow of a smile did cross my face as I pulled on the CBC kit instead, its pink, blue, white, and Colorado flag undimmed by the darkness of the day.  I asked myself how I could ever race in the red, white, and blue again, stand with pride with the American flag emblazoned across jackets and hats, pants, and collars.  The path that lies before me now asks that I stand for this country, in partnership with a firearm.  How then, I wondered, could I face my own self in the mirror and do this?

CBC, you are how.  The future generations, you are how.  Yesterday my facebook erupted, not in messages of anger, but in messages of love.  Of promises to stand up for those who have less, who identify as a minority, who are afraid as the darkness rises.  Of pledges to protect others, be kind to others, to remember who we are, and that we are strong enough to face the coming years.  Though the waves of disbelief still echo across our country, our flag still stands for something stronger than a single man, a single day.  Our stars and stripes have flown over many battlefields and sports fields, acts of terror and acts of heroism.  We have passed through years of darkness and years of light, through wars civil and worldwide, and still come out standing.

You all give me hope, each one of you.  From Grand Junction to Evergreen, Denver to Boulder, from the Rockies to the Great Plains, I am inspired by each of you and your dedication to both this sport and to being wonderful human beings.  I know that there are parts of America in which acceptance, love, kindness, and intelligence remain.   For all of you that have children, I hope you teach them the value of these qualities, as each of you have taught me.  I will wear the American flag for this, I will wear it for you.  Because of you, my friends, I will wear the American suit with pride.  

And now we turn our faces toward Sweden, and the countdown to World Cup #1..... are you ready? I'm ready.

Time Trial results from yesterday HERE
Time Trial results from today should be up soon on http://zone4.ca/results/