Home Sweet Home

Since my last post, the final weeks of fall semester has come and past, and I have made my way back to Anchorage. It feels awesome to be home. Plain and Simple. 

Zeroing for the Sprint Competition at the North American Cup this past week. Photo Jehle Family

This past week, I travelled to West Yellowstone with the Biathlon Elite team for the first North American Cup races of the season. It had been a while since I had raced biathlon (due to early-season race cancellations and my focus and commitment to the Montana State Ski Team) but I seemed to still have my touch, and shot well enough to win the Sprint and place second in the next days' Pursuit race. While the racing field in biathlon is considerably smaller than any nordic race, the competition was fierce enough to still feel incredibly satisfied with those results. The temperatures never got above zero degrees while we were in West Yellowstone, and hopefully I wont have to shoot in -11F again this year. It was a good race series for Biathlon Elite as well, showing that what was only a pipe-dream of an idea in my head last May is turning into one of the most powerful private biathlon forces in the nation. Biathlon Elite picked up a new sponsor this month, Hammer Nutrition, which will function as our fueling and supplement suppliers as well as our nutrition advisors for this next year.

Myself and Casey Smith after the Sprint. After such a disappointing SuperTour Series
the week before, this win felt good.

Spending the weekend before finals out of town and racing is super fun, but makes for a finals week of sleepless nights and a new interpretation of what an "acceptable" source to cite might be. I couldn't get out too much to train due to finals, so now that I'm home on familiar trails I'm skiing like a bat out of hell. Yesterday Andrew and I raced the Team Sprint together, and I had a great time losing the leads he would make for me each lap around.

 

Team Sprinting with the bro. First exchange. We were winning!

 And now I am enjoying skiing everyday in paradise. Today was cold (-16F) but my camera was still able to capture this gem. 

 

In the negative teen temps, but I couldn't care less. I'm home and doing what I love.