New Season, New Goals
The spring semester has come to an end and I am excited to start running, road biking, and rollerskiing under the sun! With school over and restrictions on work, I have filled my time with finally updating last season’s training log (oops), crust skiing, and a lot of gluten free baking. So far, I have made pumpkin bread, brownies, and a cheesecake. Best part is, they all turned out really well. If this biathlon thing doesn’t work out I have a promising career here ;) In case it does work out, the new season has started and I am excited and stressed at the same time! I am excited because I have new goals and summer is almost here, but I am also stressed because my surgery was cancelled and there are uncertainties ahead.
I wanted to start the new season off on the right foot by getting surgery on my left foot. However, that plan quickly changed when Alaska shut down all non-emergency surgeries the day after I got my final CAT scan and date scheduled. Currently, some restrictions are lifting, so I am hoping to hear back very soon if the hospital will do my surgery. If they do, I am getting scheduled in as soon as possible! It is really unfortunate that this surgery has gotten pushed further and further back because I will have less time to be recovered and trained up for this year
I made the mistake of knowing I needed surgery and putting it off until the season was over. Although I could not have predicted this pandemic changing my plans, I really regret not getting the surgery done in the fall. Yes, doing that probably would have prevented me from doing most of the races I did do, but it would have saved me a lot of pain and I would be recovered by now. Oh whale, live and learn. I absolutely will not go another season without getting this surgery, though, and look forward to training pain free!
Post surgery and recovery, I have a mix of goals and uncertainties. Since I have now aged out of racing JNQs, I am going to focus on biathlon racing! I have absolutely fallen in love with this sport. It is dynamic, challenging, and invigorating. I am looking forward to my first summer training with the Anchorage Biathlon Club and my coach, Jean, so I can fine tune the skills needed to be competitive. Which leads into my main goal for this year: to be competitive. Soon, I will have a full year of biathlon under my belt, so I want to start being real competition against other skiers my age. I think I have a handle on the ropes enough that I am not shooting blind. As a result, I look forward to racing at a level where the pressure is on. Towards the end of this spring, I was putting the pieces together and I plan to carry that momentum into this winter.
The uncertainties are not knowing what races I am going to do! There is, unfortunately, not a lot of biathlon races in Alaska, so I will need to travel. This summer, I would really like to go to the USBA Rollerski Nationals and, this winter, go to USBA Nationals, Junior World Trials, and the North American Cup (NorAm Cup) biathlon races. The NorAm Cups are pretty competitive races in the lower 48 and Canada. Since I really want to run with the big dogs, I should go to races with a lot of competition! This remains unplanned because of logistics, such as costs, if my coach can take me or if I will need to hitch hike with another team, and how it will fit with my work and school schedules.
They say writing down your goals makes you more likely to reach them so I am writing them on this blog post. Hopefully, I will be more motivated to reach them if the people who took 5 minutes out of their day to read this, now guilt me into being accountable. On a happy note, I ended up 40th out of 140 women on the USBA ranking list this year! Yes, I know this is not a great ranking, but I am stoked anyway because I am on the list at all!
I’m also looking forward to another season on Fischer skis and boots thanks to SkinnySkis. Be sure to check them out now for all of your spring and summer gear needs.
