From the far and desolate region of Khanty-Mansia, I write about my experiences thus far. I admit, have been nonexistent in the world of blogs for some time now. So catch up time it is! A few long winded stories, but I feel it the humor is worth it.

Ok where to begin…

After Pokjluka World Cup, instead of returning home to Canada our entire team stayed in central Europe. I took a week away from biathlon and took the train to St. Anton, Austria. Many years ago my parents met in St. Anton, my mom a ski instructor and my dad on a ski holiday. This winter they decided it was time to rejoice in their retired life and spend the season skiing in their old hangout. Our family reconvened for Christmas in the quaint downhill ski resort and had a wonderful time. I joined in for a few alpine afternoons in between cross country skiing at the different trails in the area. Being surrounded by family and friends and quality social time was exactly what I needed. We didn’t have any intense powder ski days but the skiing was still fun, the resort being enormously vast and scenery stunning. My other favorite pursuit was the rodelbahn (natural luge/sledding). I could have done this all day!
After Christmas, I left the family and joined my team for a training camp in Antholz, Italy. After a solid week of training it was time for the World Cup series again, starting with 2 weeks in Germany – Oberhof followed by Ruhpolding. Unfortunately, race results were nothing special. But I did manage to get a significant time on TV due to a spectacular crash in the Women’s Relay in Oberhof. One second I was attacking the downhill, the next flying head first in the air. Absolutely no idea what happened, or whose ski took who out.

Here is the link to the youtube video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBSNU_9Xsec

Post Ruhpolding, our team flew home. It was disappointing to not be travelling onto the Antholz World Cup, one of my favorite World Cup destinations. The weather looked warm and sunny, and we had been suffering in wind, fog, and heavy rain for 2 weeks in Germany. It was time to see the sun again! Fortunately, Canmore was heavenly. Excellent to be home, in my own bed, cook for myself etc. I spent a good 3 weeks at home training, much longer than usual; however my goal for the season was World Championships and I knew I needed to adjust a few things in training in order to get myself in shape for March. My physical shape was not where I wanted it to be in December and January and I wanted to see if I could turn my season around by the end. Above all, I needed to lift my spirits and gain confidence.

I left for Fort Kent, Maine on February 7^th for World Cup #8… another week of disappointing results mostly due to my shooting. However, the week was entertaining looking back to say the least….

It started with the epic travel. In reality it should be simpler to travel to a North American World Cup. However, if there was a way to screw it up and have a longer travel day than the Europeans we successfully did it!

My team was already in Maine as they had competed the previous week in Presque Isle. I was to meet our High Performance Director in Montreal and together drive to the border town Clair, New Brunswick. My travel day from Canmore to Fort Kent, began at 4:45am MST and when I finally laid my head down to catch some zzzz’s, it was 5:00am EST. Mother Nature did not help. It snowed 30cm overnight and driving to the airport at 5:30am many of the main roads were still waiting for snowplow action. My plane to Montreal needed to wait for de-icing, while waiting the runway closed for snow removal, then back in the line for more de-icing, then something in the electronic system failed…. FINALLY 4 hours later we were in the air onwards to Montreal. But the adventure continued, a 8 hour drive in winter conditions lay ahead.

When we arrived at 2 am at the Chinese Buffet Maple Motel, in Claire, it seemed vacant. There was no front desk; in fact there was no indication that it actually was a motel. We found a door that opened to a staircase leading to a hallway that held 7 hotel rooms, but the doors were all locked, there was no number to call for a key, and no one answered our pounding on the doors. Was my team fast asleep in this dilapidated motel or were we at the wrong Maple Motel in a town of 100? Our only concrete indication was that one of our rented team vans was in the parking lot. After more pounding we gave up. Across the street lay the border to the United States and Fort Kent, Maine. We drove across the border bridge into USA for the hopes to find a vacant bed. Bad move. Due to having a biathlon rifle in the car, we were held up for 45 min in US customs to go over passports and rifle permits. Sweet, that’s what I like doing at 3am most nights. While searching our vehicle, the customs man discovers a Ziploc bag of pills in my carryon and brings it inside dropping it on the counter, “What’s this? I told you many over the counter drugs and prescription drugs are not allowed into the USA.”

“It’s COLD FX and Vitamin C tablets. It’s just a natural cold remedy made with ginseng.”

“Hmmm. Ok.” Looking stern and not convinced, he says, “Does it work?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Ok then.”

And off we go, he tells us the motel across the street has a vacancy sign lit.

A man was sleeping on a couch by the front desk, “Nope no rooms, all full. This whole town is full.” Awesome. After driving the main strip and Google mapping the area, we officially came to the conclusion we were outa luck.

Back across the bridge to Canada. “How long have you been in the USA?”

“An hour.” “

What were you doing there? Did you buy anything?”

“Nope, we are suppose to be staying in this Maple Motel right there, but we can’t get in. Just looking for a place to sleep.”

“Oh ok. Well good luck.”

We gave up trying to wake the sleeping beauties in the ghost motel. Clearly my teammates possess comatose talent at 2am. I should have considered pulling the fire alarm. Alas, our options were sleeping in the van or driving back 30 minutes down the road towards Edmonson (the closet “big” town in the area) where there was a large Best Western. Option 2 it was. And that is how my travel to the East coast took 22 hours.

The next day, after a quick bite to eat (the weirdest salad of my life) it was time for training. Called the Belair salad, it consisted of: on the plate was a layer of whole lettuce leaves, layer of shredded processed ham, layer of grated mozzarella cheese, pile of grapes, 2 boiled eggs, and on either side of the plate was mayonnaise covered overcooked mushy broccoli, cauliflower, carrot salad. Interesting… but not what I had in mind for a nutritious appetizing start to my day. Dietician’s nightmare…

The week’s adventure didn’t end here. It involved incessant trips back and forth across the border. Eating, training, and entertainment occurred in Fort Kent. Sleeping, naps, recovering, massage occurred in Claire. One minute, Canada, one minute USA. Rumor has it; “they” thought it would be fine if the Canadians stayed in their own country for the World Cup. All fine and dandy except crossing the American border is not as swift as driving from Germany into Austria. Where’s my passport? Eiik, where’s my rifle permit? Were constant shout outs. Nevertheless, we survived, and we even survived Monday’s drive back to Montreal.

Was it smooth, of course not! There was a road closure due to heavy snowfall and we were stuck for 3 hours in a family diner in some desolate Quebec town. We checked out a mini mall, with a huge dollar store, repeatedly checked the road report, started to get really bored and then found Geret asleep in comfy sofa outside a furniture store. When we heard the road wasn’t going to open till the next day, we mapped out an obscure route to bypass the weather system and make it to Montreal. Well by 2:30am we made it. Next day, flew to Munich… this was completely painless and unproblematic! Unbelievable how straightforward flying across the ocean to a foreign continent can be!

From Munich we drove to Dobbiaco, Italy and spent a wonderful week of training, recovering in the spa and eating delicious Italian fare at the Santer Hotel. This was to be our final preparations before the 2011 World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

And with that, I end my epic story. Later this week, news from Russia… it’s all fur.

Ciao for now, Zina