Here I am.  Sweden.  The name of the town, Rambudgerbergerbaguh… (not sure).  It’s about 3 hours north of Ostersund in the tundra-ish area.  It’s actually pretty close to Sylarna, where Tim, Per, and I went on that epic running adventure this August.  We landed in Ostersund yesterday after a fairly uneventful trip across the pond.  There’s a good amount of snow on the ground and the forecast is cold so I’m eager to get out on the tracks tomorrow and get back into the swing of it.

And that’s just it.  I’ve been out sick for about a week now.  Yes, I did get the flu.  Yes, it was most likely H1N1. No, it wasn’t that bad.  What can I say… at least now I’m immune and I can’t get it later on in the season.

As promised in my last post, here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.  Namely, some shots from our 3-week training camp out in Utah and a few shots from a brief trip down to New York City for the 100-Days To Vancouver celebration.  Enjoy.

Here’s to winter and all it may bring!

-LB

Hi Everyone.

I apologize for the lack of multimedia experiences.  Pictures are coming… soon… I promise.  For now, a few words.

I am back in Lake Placid for a brief respite from The Road.  And I do mean brief.   I am scheduled to fly over to Sweden on Saturday.  That being said, I am looking forward to getting on snow and getting in “World Cup Mode”.  It has been a great training season so far and now, it’s really just a matter of maintaining the gains made in Spring, Summer, and Fall and putting it on the line for the first World Cup in December.

It has been a nice transition back to Lake Placid.  The weather has cooperated nicely, which, as everyone from the North Country knows, is a rare occurrence in mid-November.  We’ve had some good training on the new venue over at the Jumps.  Other than that, not a whole lot is new.  This is always the hardest time of year for me.  The daylight is short, there’s little or no snow, and the racing is still a little way off.  So, I’m biding my time, training, playing a little music, and waiting for winter.  Hope this update finds you all well.

- LB

Out in utah right now… The land of sun and scrub brush.  It’s been a decent training camp so far.  I got sick just before I came out here so I had to lay low for a couple of days in the hotel room.  I was able to train on Wednesday and do some intervals by Saturday of last week.  So now it’s just to get back in the swing of things.  We had a time trial today… Can’t say it was my best performance, but hey, given the fact that my wheel exploded and I made it down the last downhill, I’m pretty happy I’m even able to type right now!

Training is going well.  Other than that, I’ve been asked to get involved with the Greenlaces movement.  Greenlaces is a program set up to motivate people about environmental awareness and conservation.  As Greenlaces participants, athletes pledge to do something that is environmentally conscious and, in order to promote the movement, they either wear green laces in their competition shoes or wear a Greenlaces patch/logo.  Since the laces of my skiboots are covered, I guess I’ll be going with the patch.

So sorry. no pics right now.  I’m tired and it’s a little bit of work (like 5 minutes) to get the pics uploaded in the right format.  I’ll try and get some up in the next few days.  For the time being, I just wanted to get back on the board with a new web post.

Cheers,

LB

From Left to Right: Matt Cook, Tim Burke, Sean Burke, Paul "The Bass-Assin" Ames, Casey Simons, Dylan Macguffin

There are times in the season where you have to buckle down and really focus – train hard, eat your vegetables, visualize fast skiing and targets falling, etc.  This week was not – but I’ll get to that later.  Last week was one of those weeks.  I had a decent volume mini-block at the front end followed by the North American Rollerski Biathlon Races in Jericho, VT on the weekend.  The races went OK but I definitely felt a little mentally fried on the shooting range.  After three weeks of intense training, your focus starts to erode and your fine motor skills/ability to hit targets goes south (or north or east or west – just not in the center).  The races were a good chance to get back in competition mode but they weren’t anything to write home about – unless you like letters about missing 6 targets in the Pursuit.  All in all, it was a solid three-week block.

The Rig: Honda Odyssey, Grummin 18'er, '52 Dumphy w/ Honda 50, Various Provisions.

So, on to this week, the all-important Recovery Week!  I look forward to these more than Christmas – I had intervals on Christmas last year.  And this was really the last opportunity to get out and recover in the Adirondack Summer as I will be leaving for Sweden tomorrow.  That being said, we made the most of it and rented and Island on Lower Saranac Lake.  This was to be the site of Bass Attack ‘09 – a fishing competition (that’s right, a competition) between anglers from all over the Nordic realm (namely, myself, Tim Burke, Casey Simons, and Dylan Macguffin).  I prepared by reading the latest issue of “Bassin’” (yes, no “g” in the title) and watching videos of Bass Pro Tour on YouTube in my spare time.

Myself, Dylan, Casey, and Tim (just his arm), headed for lunkers.

We hit the water at the crack of noon, ready to wet a line and hit the lunar cycle right at the sweet spot.  And… well… we floated around a lot, worked the water pretty well, covered almost every inch of that lake, and only turned up a handful of puny rock bass and a few small mouths.  Dylan looked to be headed for vistory until johnny-come-lately angler Paul “The Bass-assin” Ames of Saranac Lake took the high honors with a late-day catch in the final hours of the event.

The prize-giving ceremony was tense, as many anglers questioned the legitimacy of Ame’s catch.  There was some discrepency as to whether Ames had been using a banned lure, but after a post-competition test by the World  Anti Lure Fraud Association (WALFA) he was shown to have hooked the lunker on a standard worm jig.

I’m dissapointed in my showing on the water.  I felt like I was really prepared for success going into the event.  I new the lunkers would be down deep, below the thermocline.  I knew they weren’t going to be hitting surface.  But that’s the way these tournaments go.  Maybe next year.  FYI, my pics are now “clickable”.  Click on any of them to see the full res shot.

So now I’m back in biathlon world, packing for Sweden, about to head abroad for a 7 week biathlon safari.  I’ll throw up an update once I get on the ground over there.

Peace,

LB

I have to be honest.  I’m not really in the mood to blog.  I’m tired.  That’s one thing about training… it makes you tired.  But the end of the camp is near and I’ve only got a few more hours of skating left before some down time.  It’s been an awesome week here in Jericho.  There’s been a lot of activity at the range and it was nice to get some help from the Guard program throughout the workouts.  Thanks to Sarah, Travis, and Jesse for making things go smoothly this week.

For those of you out there wondering how the Blog Off is going, don’t worry – things are moving along nicely:  I’m winning.

Let’s see.  What else… How about a survey?  I’ll see if I can get this “poll” thing to work.  If not, I apologize and I’ll try to have something up soon.

Cheers,

LB

Jeremy Scott Teela: A noble adversary

It’s official:  The Blog War has begun!  Today I was informed by my teammate Jeremy that my blogging skills suck.  Although I agree with him, I’m a competitive person and not one to back down from a challenge…. So, I’m in.  And the terms:

Hmmm.  Let’s leave it up to you, the viewers.  We could go by “number of website hits” but then I know that Jeremy would just click on his own site a thousand times a day and throw the numbers off.  So maybe we should go with best comments posted by viewers other than ourselves.  What do you think JT? And who will judge?  Maybe we’ll bring a third-party intermediary.

I admit, right now, the odds aren’t looking good for Buck.  JT’s fashioned up quite the site.  He’s got a lot of media stuff on there.  I don’t have Twitting, 1080ip 9er 9er, little images that turn into bigger ones, and I just referred to myself in the third person (not sure if that is a plus or minus).  Anyone know how to post images that will get bigger if you click on them?

For now, I’m going to sit in the peloton, bide my time and wait for the later stages.  This is going to be a long and drawn out battle between two of the greatest blogging minds of our modern times.  A test where the winner will reap the benefits of fame and fortune, international noteriety, and tens of webpage hits, while the loser will be left to clean up the broken pieces of a shattered blogspace.  It’s on.

Thanks to Billy D for getting this jem out of the archives. Vintage NYSEF shot!

Jeremy Teela and I at Bernd's wedding. Check out Jeremy's site, jeremyteela.com.

Ahh yes... Spring skiing!

After an epic start to the season – I left April 22nd and didn’t get back until May 14th – I’m back in LP.  I guess I’ve been here for about a month now but I just haven’t got around to posting a new update.  It took some prodding from a certain Jacked Up Old Man* to get me off my @#$ and back in “update mode”.   So… the update:

*Jacked Up Old Man, see also “Robert Duncan Douglas”, or “Basement Bob”. www.jackedupoldman.com.

I took a trip out west to Utah in April to tele ski for a week with Jeremy T, Casey S, and Billy D.  That was an awesome experience.  I never get the chance to just tele ski for a week unless it’s April.  Usually, I just stick around here and ski Whiteface for a few weeks.  But this time I felt like hitting the Western powder.  I skied 7 different resorts in 8 days and had a blast!

From there, I flew back to LP for a few days and then left for Europe on April 22nd.  Landing in Munich, I drove five hours over to the Czech Republic to spend some time with my girlfriend.  Then we headed back to Munich for my team manager, Bernd Eisenbichler’s, wedding.  Then, directly to Colorado Springs for some shooting training with the position shooting head coach.  Two days later I was skiing on the Olympic trails in Whistler, B.C.  Four days later, we hopped across the water to Vancouver Island and trained for a few days at the Washington Mt. XC Center – three feet of snow in May!  Then it was down to L.A. for an NBC photo/video shoot.  That took a full day and was an interesting experience in a world I’ve never had the chance to see.  And finally I made it back to 4589 Cascade Rd., ready to get back to the real nuts and bolts of what we do.

So that’s what I’ve been up to this last month – nuts and bolts, the day-to-day biathlon training regiment.  Dryfire, rollerskiing, shooting, running, biking, etc.  And of course, I’ve made time to fit a little bit of music in on the side.

-LB

The Vancouver Olympic icon. Just as you enter the biathlon venue. It's about 20ft tall and solid granite! (see other photos at the bottom of this post).

Hi Everyone,

I’m in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia right now, about to race the Sprint tomorrow.  Conditions are good and it’s going to be an exciting end to the season.

Since I last wrote, I headed out to Vancouver, Canada to race the 8th World Cup of the season.  It was nice to get some head-to-head racing in and experience what that venue will be like at the Olympics.  The Vancouver venue combines biathlon, cross-country, and nordic combined stadiums in an area less than one square kilometer.  It is an amazing place and I think when the crowds show up for the Games next year it will be an incredible sight.  The racing didn’t go so well for me there and I struggled a bit in the shooting range.  But that’s biathlon!  After a week, win or lose, you pack up your stuff and head to the next venue.

This time we left our hotel at 3:45am and took a few flights (four to be exact) to Trondheim, Norway.  After two days on the ground there, we were back racing in the 10km Sprint.  This race went much better for me.  I cleaned (hit all my targets) and skied reasonably well, placing 20th.  During the Pursuit, two days later, I started out really well, cleaning my first two stages and getting up to 8th place before falling back with some misses in the final two shooting rounds.  Again… that’s biathlon!  I have to say though, this season has been great- not just because I have made improvements in my results – but because I feel like I have learned a lot about the sport and what I really need to focus on going into the Olympic season.

So now, after another quick flight I’m another four time zones east and getting ready for another 10km Sprint race tomorrow (Thursday) evening.  Khanty constitutes the final stop on the world cup tour this year and it is always a great venue to race at.  They draw a lot of fans and this time of year, Siberia usually isn’t all that cold!  I’m ready to go, ready to focus for two more races!

Cheers,

LB

On the shuttle from Squamish, BC to the biathlon venue in Whistler (about 50 mins each way!).

Gara the wax guru.

Downtown Trondheim. About 1 km from the Ocean.

"In Dopers We Trust"! Yes, that right. In Russia, they don't take down posters with convicted blood dopers on them. In case your wondering, Yaroschenko (third from the right) tested postitive for banned substances not once, but three times this year before he was yanked off the world cup and slapped with a lifetime ban!

One of the many crazy downhills on the World Champs course!

Hi Everyone,

This one’s going to be short because I’m on my way to Vancouver soon and I have to pack!  Just wanted to let everyone know how the World Championships went in South Korea.

After a year of physical and mental preparation, it was great to see the work pay off in Pyeong Chang.  I started off pretty bad on the shooting range in the first race, the 10km Sprint, but my skiing was faster than it had been all year and I was able to just squeak into the Pursuit (top 60 qualify) in 56th place.  The next race was different.  The conditions were very gusty and I was able to hit 16 of 20 targets, moving up to 22nd Place.  I would say this is my best performance of the year so far and definitely the farthest – “place-wise” – that I have moved in a Pursuit all year.

After the Pursuit, we moved on to the Individual.  I felt great all week up until the morning of the race, when I woke up feeling nauseous and dizzy.  But, it’s World Championships!  This is the most important race series of the year.  So I decided, even with the upset stomach, that I would start the race and see how it went.  As it so happens, I did feel awful on the tracks, but I was able to move up in the standings with better-than-average shooting.  I missed two on the day and placed… yes… you guessed it, 22nd!

So after three races, I had two respectable finishes under my belt and now the prospect of qualifying for the Mass Start competition became a real possibility.  During the rest of the year, the 30-competitor Mass Start field is filled with the top thirty ranked athletes based on the overall World Cup score for the season.  However, at World Champs, the Mass Start field is filled with: 1st – Medal winners from the Sprint, Pursuit, and Individual, 2nd – those athletes ranked 15th or higher in the overall that were not medal winners, and 3rd – they backfill the with the top-30 ranked athletes bases solely on rankings determined by the first three races at World Champs.  With my two 22nds, I qualified for the 29th bib!

Racing in the Mass Start at W. Champs has been my goal (I even wrote it down) since the beginning of the year so seeing it come to fruition was for me the most satisfying point of the season… so far!  I had a mediocre race, but since there are only 30 athletes allowed to race, you can’t be worse than 30th place!  I finished in 18th with 5 penalties.  I was satisfied with my performance but I know I can do better… just need to qualify for more Mass Start opportunities.

So, now, after a brief training block at home in Lake Placid, I am about to head for Vancouver for the start of the Spring World Cup’s (the last three World Cup’s in the 08/09 Season).  We head first to Canada, then Trondheim, Norway, then Khanty Mansiysk, Russia for the World Cup finals.  After three weeks of intense racing and travel, I fly home to Lake Placid on March 31st.  I’m really excited for the last three race series!   Hope this post finds everyone well and enjoying Spring skiing (or fishing/running/ swimming) wherever you are!

Best,

Lowell