And we are literally hours away from the start of the World Cup season… ok ok false, the men have started their pursuit for Gold day 1 of the season in the 20km Individual competition. BUT the women are just under 24 hours away. It’s going to be yet another exciting year with rookies, newbies, returnees and veterans. By now, I guess I really fit into the veteran category! The veterans, though they are getting old and creaky, they have the experience, insight, and knowledge, and can still surprise! Just as the newbies can come out of nowhere and shock us all! So… the question is who is going to step up to the plate this year???

I had an excellent autumn… in October, 4 of us from the AB development training center (Melanie, Kat, Andrea, and myself) went to Salt Lake City (Soldier Hollow) for a 2 week training camp. Us girls were a dynamite team in the kitchen, cooking up delicious meals for optimal recovery post training! We even had a mini Thanksgiving dinner, roast chicken, quinoa stuffing, roast veges, a huge delicious salad, and of course, (not pumpkin pie) but pumpkin crumble…. in fact it even ended up being a gluten free meal with the crumble being made with buckwheat flour! ANYWAY… aside from great meals, we also trained. And we finished the camp with 2 Sprint races with the American team – part of their World Cup trials. The races were a good test and race practice. I finished 4th and 1st (with 8/10, 9/10).

After we returned on Oct 23rd from our warm extended summer training in Salt Lake, we happily were able to put the rollerskis away for the season! Because in Canmore it was cold enough for the saved snow from last year to be put out for a 1.8km loop! Frozen Thunder… the so called track, was really good this year. Soon we had snow making and then it was even more awesome….Plus Lake Louise received a good dump of snow and was full on winter wonderland beginning of November.

Side note – I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to help out and hopefully inspire the growing team of Red Deer Nordic this fall. They have reached an astonishing number of 33 athletes! (When I was starting biathlon at age 15, Red Deer Nordic had disintegrated and was nonexistent.) I spent one full day with the team – run/ski bounding, roller skiing, technique sessions and finishing it with a team curry potluck. Just before I left for Europe, the team had a camp in Lake Louise, and I was able to join the team for a nice easy skate ski with 6 of the amazing young chicas!

On the 14th, 15th of November we had our World Cup trial races. I had decent races, coming 2nd overall, and therefore on the 20th was headed to Calgary to catch the long 10hr flight to Frankfurt. Note to newbie travellers… always bring a sleep mask, ear plugs (Bose noise cancelling headphones are a wicked addition), and if you can’t sleep, take a sleeping pill! A zillion hours later I arrived in Ostersund, Sweden and met up with our wax tech Tom Zidek to go his place for some jet lag recovery time. Tom and Anna Carin live in a small farming village named Lillhardal, so it was an excellent homey place to get some rest and relax before the big show. I thought I was a pretty adventurous eater, even from the age of 3, but little Liam Zidek at 3 1/2 was requesting a dollop of tubed caviar on his boiled egg at breakfast! Nope…none for me thanks!

Well it is now time for that show to get underway. Let’s see what the warrior princess has in her this year!

More to come as the races begin…

Our van was filled with the noise of young girls crooning to each pop song, whether it was ABBA, Avril, or ACDC. This is how we survived our drive to and from our camp in Whistler from August 18th-28th. Music, singing and seat dancing are marvellously important to the sanity of one’s survival in a long drive. Don’t forget that next time you take on the road. Even if it is only a 5 minute drive to the store. Sing it out…. and don’t forget car seat dancing.

On the way to Whistler we stopped overnight in Kelowna and were graciously taken in by one of our teammates family and absolutely fed to high heavens. Then next morning we did a long rollerski up a pass before continuing the drive to Whistler. The reason for a camp in Whistler was to do higher volume of intensity at a lower altitude than Canmore. And that we did. Day 1 we did a rollerski cross country sprint race with the World Cup Academy (a development and senior xc team based in Canmore that we are co-connected with). Being that is was my first cross country sprint race, I was a bit nervous about my sprinting abilities. I’m really not a fast-twitch! Well the result wasn’t too bad… but I think I will stick to the longer distances!

A couple of great hikes to add to the list as well – hiking the Squamish Great Chief (although climbing the Chief could have been more awesome!), and hiking up to front of Whistler to the Peak to Peak gondola in Whistler. Great views, great scenery and fun times. In honor of hiking up a mountain called the Great Chief, we put on war paint… only it was neon zinc oxide! What we didn’t realize was that your face gets really really sweaty underneath that zinc!

It wasn’t only train, train, train… Whistler happened to have live band performances going on every few days and we got out to see Bare Naked Ladies. “it’s been 1 week since you looked at me, cocked your head to the side and said I’m angry…” Memories anyone?

And then it was back to training… We enjoyed some solid summer heat, jumping into cold lakes, eating ice cream, and of course, roller skiing- technique, intervals and races – shooting, hiking, running and then it was back to Canmore…

Richard’s (my coach) little summary of the camp in this great video –  Whistler Training Camp

Time has been flying by as per usual. Finally a major rest week has encouraged me, no provided me with a magnitude of time that I am rarely privileged with, to catch up on blog updates and well lets face it, life in general!

So… to start with I made some changes this year. I yearned for change and feelings of assurance, satisfaction, contentment and happiness was necessary for me to continue. I suppose those feelings were on the up and up before the training year even started while on my vacation in Greece. What I did not mention in my last blog was that a wonderful man got down on one knee and proposed to me…. and I zealously replied yes

Following the elation of vacation and the whole bit, I promptly needed to make a decision about biathlon and training. Therefore, after 10 years of being on the National Team as a junior and senior athlete, I left the program and joined a new team/program/club called the Biathlon Alberta Development Training Center with coach Richard Boruta. I strongly felt a change in environment would be a positive step, in addition to having the confidence in the direction with Richard Boruta; a former coach of mine that I worked with until 2006 and had tremendous success with. Thus far, training has been going extremely well and I’m looking forward to regaining my spot on the National Team for the winter and competing for medals this season at the World Cup. Furthermore, we have been incredibly fortunate to have an amazing new assistant coach working with us. From being my competitor just last season, Swedish Olympic Champion, Anna Carin Zidek, has now transitioned from biathlete to assisting Richard coaching our team this summer!

During the month of May we began our training in Silverstar, BC, skiing, and biking. There was still a ton of snow on the Sovereign Lakes trails so was fantastic skiing in the morning. Great way to start out the training year.

June was spent in Canmore, focusing on volume training and a ton of shooting. We spent 3 days on a mini bike and kayak camp in Invermere, BC, which was a great escape from the “June” showers we were experiencing in Canmore.  (It’s more like June showers bring July flowers here in the Canmore Rockies… )

July started with a “Testival” with the National Team. We did a running time trial up Sulphur Mountain, double pole test up Mt. Norquay, and a skate time trial up Mt. Norquay. In between time trial days, we had 2 shooting tests – a 600 score Precision test, and a speed/accuracy test the next day. There was a point system in order to calculate the overall final winner of the week. And the final champs for men and women were Brendan Green and myself!

The following two weeks included 2 mini camps up to the Haig glacier in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, technically referred to as the Beckie Scott Training Facility. I often am asked what it is like up there or how we get in as it is in the heart of Kananaskis Country. To start with, we athletes, and staff have to run roughly 2 ½ hours into the base camp, about 20km from the nearest parking lot at Upper Kananaskis Lake. The helicopter flies in/out on Mondays, airlifting ski gear to the glacier and luggage to base camp. So thankfully we are only running in with sport drink and a bar! Though it must be a disconcerting to the avid backpacker on a 3-day trek, when suddenly 10 athletes come scuttling through with only a drink belt and bear spray! Notice I mentioned bear spray… yes there is a good population of grizzly and black bears in the area and it’s rare to not see one while in the park, that’s why it is so important to be yelling AYO, or your dog’s name, even if he’s not with you and has been dead for 3 years. Along the way we pass two backpacking campgrounds, Forks and Turbine. About 30 minutes pass Turbine we reach our rock field moonscape camp, consisting of sleeping, training and cooking huts. To reach the skiing on the glacier, we hike another 45 minutes up the ridge along Mount Jelicoe to reach the Glacier at just over 2700 meters. A propane powered snow cat grooms a 5-6km ski track allowing the athletes to train in both classic and free techniques.

Basically our days consist of hiking, skiing loop after loop, eating a ton, dead to the world naps, card games, monopoly, Frisbee golf, and maybe an evening movie. At times I dread the camp because of amount of training and the feeling of altitude… but once I’m there, I love it. It always feels great to be away from it all up on a mountaintop, especially when the weather is spectacular. And of course, there are always amusing events. For instance, this year a marmot (which is a very large rodent that lives in the high alpine) snuck into the kitchen and was hiding under the fridge. I swore I saw something scamper under the fridge when I grabbed some milk for my tea. It ended up taking an astonishing long time for us to convince the marmot to get out from under the fridge and exit out the door only a foot away. Probably having an entire team of athletes watching the escapade unfold did not entice the marmot to leave his little hideout. And poking him with broomsticks under the fridge only caused him to make sad whimpers. It made you want to grab the little guy and give him a hug. But trust me, when you see them sneaking into the outhouses and eating poo, that attraction rapidly dissipates.

On a side informational note, due to the area being within a park there are strict guidelines for environmental safety which include solar power used for powering buildings, propane for heating building and water, propane outhouses to burn human waste, 5 step grey water filtration, all reusable materials recycled and all garbage flown out.

Well, now it’s already August and we are on a wonderful little rest week. I have decided to be a homebody this time and have just been living the life on my deck, swimming at the Canmore waterhole called the Quarry, and commuting around town on my townie. This weekend is calling for some rock climbing. Can’t wait!

My spring was a wonderful whirlwind of events!

After a not so great World Cup racing season, I flew to Charlo, New Brunswick for National Championships to finish the year off. I had an excellent end to the year, winning all 4 events (Individual, Sprint, Pursuit and Mixed Relay). The last time we had Nationals in Charlo, I recall very warm weather and freezing rain…. This year it was proving all over the country that April was going to be a cold month, and Charlo was no exception. It was between -10*C to – 15*C all week, but it really wasn’t all that bad because it meant hard packed great ski conditions! Highlights of Nationals included: a bunch of us senior women and local volunteers hosting a Biathlon Fast & Female event for the local young female skiers, a sugar shack evening (lots of fresh maple syrup gorging), and a final banquet with a very special guest – Romeo Dallaire. Of course, in his best form he truly presented an excellent motivational and inspiring speech.

With that finished, I thought I was headed straight to vacation…. Alas I was not! Myself and a teammate, Scott Perras, had an invitation to attend a fun Biathlon competition in Russia. I was home for just under 2 weeks, then flew to Munich to hop on a charter flight with other athletes/support staff for Kamchatka, Russia… well let me tell you that was a exhausting never ending over 35 hour travel day(s). (Trust me, if I’d had the choice, I would have flown through Alaska or China!!!)

I had heard Kamchatka was beautiful… well we arrived to heavy rainstorms causing rivers in the city streets. It was a muddy mess. Thankfully near the end of the  week the weather cleared and we were able to see the beautiful snow capped volcanoes that surround the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. I had a decent sprint finishing 10th (out of 35) but a bad pursuit finishing 17th. However, REALLY, it only matters if you win the Pursuit… because this meant winning a Mercedes. Sweet deal! The last 2 days were definitely the highlight as were spoiled with a huge banquet with live music… first up London Beat. Before the banquet I had to have my Romanian roommate, Eva, sing to me because I was like who are there??? Right so I was 6 when their single, “I’ve been thinking about you,” came out. There was also a famous Russian rock star named Dimitri… he definitely looked like he just stepped in from the ’80s… no joke. And even Boney M was there! Of course he performed Daddy Cool and Rasputin! On the last day before leaving, we had an “excursion day.” We left the city and drove on terrible roads for over 2 hrs to arrive farther into the wilderness. We had the privilege of going to a family’s house in the forest and meeting their 40 different dog sledding, and ski-jouring dogs, including a famous world champion ski-jouring dog! We then went for a dog sled ride and learnt how to ride/steer the sled ourselves. We ate fresh smoked salmon, learnt about how the natives live traditionally, snuggled with a Kamchatka bear hide, and just thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness of the forest. After a few hours there we hopped on the bus again, and drove “forever” over rough roads again, to randomly arrive at some natural hot springs in the middle of nowhere. We finished off the day soaking in various small ponds watching the sunset against the volcanoes… Truly a great finish to the week!

Following my exotic week in Kamchatka, it was time for vacation and rest. I flew to Athens, meeting my boyfriend at a hostel under the Acropolis. A few amazing days in Athens exploring the ruins, then off to a romantic few days in Santorini (as beautiful and incredible as people say, and pictures emulate), then 6 days rock climbing on the island of Kalymnos (wicked). 2 weeks of absolute bliss!

And then it was time for reality once again…

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

Well, the first World Cup #1 week has come to completion. On the whole a terrible start for the Canadian Team. Fortunately, JP Leguellec had a great finish in the Sprint – 19th and then finished 13th in the Pursuit. It was incredibly unfortunate that it was only 1 out of 6 athletes on our team that qualified for the Pursuit. But if you are a biathlon follower, you will have noticed that biathlon is a complex sport with many aspects that need to be just right! I had a very bad and frozen to death, sprint race finishing 84th with 2 misses prone, 3 standing. It was an incredibly cold day… – 19.8*C with 85% humidity, and although I wore 2 thick layers of long underwear, I was an ice block when I crossed the finish line. Apparently, -20 in Sweden feels like -35 in Canmore…  it was that devilish humidity!

So I was rather bitter on Sunday when it was my 28th birthday and I was “suppose” to be racing the Pursuit and instead had to watch it from the sidelines! I was not happy about that! Nevertheless, it was incredible to watch my Finnish friend Kaisa Mäkäräinen shoot 20/20 almost effortlessly and have an outstanding 1:23 min leading win. The weekend actually turned out to be a lot of fun as I had the chance to enjoy other aspects of life.  My old teammate Sandra Keith came to Ostersund for the weekend and we were able to catch up over coffee, celebrate both of our birthdays, go for a ski together and spend the afternoon shopping and browsing at the Christmas market. It’s unfortunate I’m on the road away from home until the end of January because between clothes and wonderful Christmas decorations (like this wicked straw horse with a spikey mane – I’m telling you it was an awesome xmas decoration!) I could have purchased A LOT!

After a long travel day Monday, we made it to Austria and wow is it great to be here. Not saying Sweden is a bad place. But after the parasite outbreak in the water (successfully made it through without catching the bug), and the -20 and high humidity temperatures, I am very happy to have felt the heat of the sun and hot during training today. We will see what the weekend forecast brings. I have heard that it is to snow 70cm!

More to come as the week unfolds. I’m off to enjoy a wonderful cappucino. Auf Wiedersehen!

It’s that season again… Race Time!

Seems like only yesterday I was in Whistler at the Olympics!

After a short vacation in April, I definitely contemplated finishing my biathlon career and attempting the world of books and academia. Although I had a great home Olympics experience, my personal results were disastrous and I was devastated.

But seriously who was I kidding? This “biathlon thing” is pretty fun, the fire is still burning strong and I definitely have some unfinished business!

So I took some time to myself, and made a few positive changes personally and professionally and began training for the next quadrennial.

And so here we are…

In Ostersund, Sweden the beginning of the World Cup season.

Last week I was training in Sveg, Sweden, the training location for Swedish star and super mom -  Anna Carin Oloffson-Zidek (and also our wax technician’s wife!). We had a great week recovering from jet lag and preparing for the first World Cup competition. We were actually staying in a small village near Sveg, called Lillhärdal, a town of about 500 people. Interestingly enough, this village has some dark witch history. In the year 1673, a young woman named Stor Marit was beheaded and burned. What followed was a hysteric witch-hunt within Sweden where over 350 innocent people were executed in the name of God for being the devil’s helper.

Beside practicing witchcraft (just kidding), we were invited to a friend of Anna Carin’s. They were doing an annual Christmas activity of peppermint candy making. Mmmmm… Basically a LOT of sugar, some water and only a spoonful of peppermint oil and a spoon of concentrated vinegar. That’s it!

Unfortunately, yesterday Tom had to see the dentist!

We arrived in Ostersund Sunday, and tomorrow the competitions begin! The weather is cold and frosty but being Canadians, well we are used to it.

Now let the fun begin!

Tomorrow (Wednesday) 15km Individual 16:20 (CET)

Friday 7.5km Sprint 17:20

Sunday 10km Pursuit 11:30

Watch live at www.biathlonworld.com

(and for more information and results)

World Cup Week 2

It seems all of a sudden that we are nearing the end of the first set of World Cup competitions. Slowly, we are letting this Wednesday afternoon pass as we prepare for our last 3 competitions in Poklujka, Slovenia. Tomorrow is the 15km Individual, Saturday the 7.5km Sprint and Sunday the 10km Pursuit.

Last week I had a fairly successful World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen, Austria. Friday in the Sprint, I finished 18th with 1 penalty. There is ALWAYS something that an athlete is dissatisfied with or at least acknowledges the requirement for continued improvement. After my race, I was satisfied with many aspects of the race, and yet deeply frustrated that I had missed my very last shot! If only…