A January Day
I love February. The days are long, the temperatures moderate, the legs fresh, the training light and quick, and the racing fast. In my memory, February is continuously sunny and 28 degrees- a continuous string of "blue extra" days, as many of us cross-country skiers say. In my memory, February racing is near-effortless; the lungs, heart, and muscles are primed and in peak condition. The body must be sharp, and the mind sharper.
But just as one must drive through Nebraska to get to Colorado, so too must we skiers grit through January to reward ourselves with memorable Februaries. And January racing is HARD.
For me, January is a difficult balance. My priority is to be fast at the end of the season, and so it is important to have sustained moderate volume in January. That said, the weekend races or intensity sessions during this period must be of extremely high quality in order to allow my body to adapt to the demands of skiing at an increasing race effort. This must be the priority. Therefore, rest days and recovery days must be intentional and respected. In the past, I have had a hard time with this. I used to often think of myself as lacking natural gift for sport and perceived a need to make up for it by willing my beaten body to work harder (I think that many endurance athletes may feel this way, especially early in their training careers). The truth is, it takes an even stronger will to have the discipline to be intentional with recovery. And in the past, recovery made me antsy, anxious, and frustrated.
This year, I've made it a goal to enjoy off days and easy days more - to make each January Day I experience the best one yet. I've been accomplishing this by adding a little more structure and recovery-oriented activity to my off days and a little more relaxation into my hard days. And it hasn't hurt that I've been to some pretty neat places out east: Valcartier, Quebec (just north of Quebec City), Craftsbury, VT, Burlington, VT, and, not to be forgotten, my current home base in Lake Placid, NY.
Smooth ice on Cascade Lake between Keene and Lake Placid for a January day. The City of Lake Placid plows a skating lane around the perimeter of Mirror Lake, which makes for a fine active recovery venue as well.
My first stop after Christmas was at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Craftsbury, VT, where I hopped into training with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project. The Craftsbury "GRP" is a professional ski and biathlon team in partnership with the Outdoor Center; the biathlon component of the team is coached by Sam Dougherty and has produced a a handful of World Cup competitors (Susan Dunklee and Clare Egan for biathlon). Training conditions were ideal: Craftsbury has nearly 100 km of ski trail (with never-ending plans to add more, plus mountain bike and fat-tire trail), including a portion of the core trails which are supplemented with man-made snow. An added treat was the opportunity to assist with coaching both Bill Koch League (youth) and a masters group- including a heated on-ski game of capture the flag with the BKL kids, in which of course I went all-out and ensured no youngster stole a flag under my watch. Our team won.
Craftsbury Outdoor Center, vibrant with skiers young and old.
The main training grounds. Biathlon range is on the left- the gully between the mats and the targets results in tricky wind currents. The capture the flag venue is to the right.
Attempted artistic shot from the athlete house driveway on this January day.
I joined Craftsbury for the trip to Quebec (eh? - or oui?- ne parle pas francais - thanks google) and the racing at Valcartier, which has to be my favorite biathlon race course, and one of my favorite race courses of all, to date. The venue itself is a bit strange - it's located on a large military base (snowmobiling soldiers rule at Valcartier) and some organizational components could be improved - but with winding toilet-bowl turns, rolling descents, and varied-grade climbs, all through a narrow tunnel of pines, the race course is a blast. I skied faster than I have all year at Valcartier (the climbing and minimal flat terrain suited me well), but again had a poor performance shooting in prone.
After the races, Ethan Dreissigacker (of Craftsbury) encouraged me to check my "natural point of aim" before shooting, even during a race. I started implementing this and it seems to be helping my prone significantly.
Underway at Valcartier. Photo by Mrs. Livingood.
And so it was back to Lake Placid for a few days of training with USBA coach Eric Lewish, including gluing my eyes to US Nationals results (nice job to those of you who competed in those difficult conditions!) and a very productive treadmill rollerski session with SCATT (laser shooting) combo training. I had then planned to race another Nor-Am in La Patire, Quebec, but due to poor conditions and common sense, a few of us American biathletes participated in two time trials held at, you guessed it, Craftsbury. A bit fatigued, I felt like my skiing was not at its best during these time trials, but I shot relatively well (0!,2 in the sprint and 1,2,3,1 in the mass start). The fatigue was a reminder that it's time for me to focus on recovery for a short while so I can come back with full force for my next hard efforts! I'm very thankful to Craftsbury for hosting these races; opportunities to race biathlon against strong competition in North America are few and far between. Having these time trials provided a chance for quality efforts at low cost all while remaining close to "home."
Adventures in Craftsbury round 2. Just a January day.
Needless to say, I've become quite accustomed to driving between Vermont and New York. Unfortunately, the roads are winding, two-lanes, and confusing. I have two maps (yes, real paper maps) plus the iPhone lady as backup and I still get lost (my problem: I challenge myself to memorize the route before I leave and not use my "backup"). Fortunately, it's a flat-out (but not flat, at least not compared to rural Minnesota) beautiful area. The Adirondacks, Lake Champlain, Vermont barns. And Vermont Public Radio keeps me attentive; they had a sweet special on lake sturgeon one night and even admitted that the lake sturgeon of Lake Champlain don't rival those of the Midwest.
I happened upon the "App-Gap" on VT-17, a climb which we had rollerskied during the summer.
Lake Champlain on a January day from the Waterfront of Burlington, VT
I saw a unique sight over Lake Champlain worth sharing: A near-full length rainbow in the dark of night, lit by a full moon over Vermont shining through New York rain. It was just another January Day.
A January Day
