I arrived home from the Olympics on the 2nd, and on the 3rd of March I competed in the 7.5km Sprint race at Canadian Nationals. I was definitely tired from the weeks events and knew it was going to be a tough one, but I did it. I had awful shooting- 3 misses prone and 2 misses standing. All my prone misses were in the exact same spot, so a correction may have helped, but in the end that dang penalty loop and I hung out for a bit- 750m extra actually, and I finished 7th. Not a great race.
I am currently trying to adjust a bit to European time, so I went to bed at 8:30pm (Grandma, right here, I know), and woke up at 6:45am. The 15km Individual race started at 10am, and I was there, number 11, on the start line feeling awesome. I was a bit concerned for this race because my skiing had not felt wonderful yesterday and this is an even longer race. As soon as I started skiing, I felt better. I got into the rhythm of the race and my body felt good. I came in for my first prone and missed 2- Oh no, 2 minutes added on already! This is going to be a disaster....wrong. For the next three shootings I did not miss anything. I hit 18/20 and placed 1st!!!!!! I was so happy to have finally shot well, and even more excited that I placed first! GO TEAM NEW ZEALAND! One sad thing is a don't get a medal because I am not a "Canadian". I am a foreign racer.- Haha, oh how hilarious!
Glen and Louise Crawford did an amazing job commentating and making me feel really great to be back on familiar trails. Louise kept saying I was Canmores "Little bird", or Caniwi, or little Kiwi, and all the volunteers and the crowd were cheering for me. It was really nice. Thank you to everyone.
Tomorrow is just a training day, Saturday is the Pursuit, and on Sunday I hop on a plane and fly to Finland! Wholly Cow, life is moving fast!!!!!!
Stay awesome!
Wow, congrats! What a season of racing it's been for you - and not over yet, of course :)
ReplyDeletePS
Who am I, you asked in the comments on another entry. I'm noone! That is, noone you know sneakily hiding under another name, no. Just a NZer living in the UK who 'discovered' and got addicted to watching biathlon on TV once moving here about 7 years ago. So when I say 'we watch and cheer you on' that is myself, my husband, any visiting Kiwi friends and relations here on race days watching Eurosport/IBU online coverage and not, unfortunately, beside the tracks in person ;) Maybe one day (hopefully) we can make it across to an event and wave the flag at ya!
Anyhow, it's been fun to have a Kiwi rep in the WC (and Olympics, wow) to follow the progress of, so thanks for all the hard work you do!