We are taking it easy here this morning to soon head up to "Laura" for some recovery skiing and biathlon training.
Yesterday's race was no picnic for me again. It was tough going all the way. To begin with, since it was a classic day, it of course had to be around 0 degrees and snowing - the trickiest waxing conditions. So there was a big scramble with figuring out which skis to use. Phil and I had hardly any time to warm-up what with ski and wax testing. Our rub skis did not work well and we ended uo going with a hard wax. This resulted in our skis icing up for the first lap, but thankfully they got better after that. The real problem for me was the asthma. Since it was super humid again with the snow coming down, I had trouble breathing right from the start. In the middle of the third lap, I got a major asthma attack and couldn't really breathe at all. I was trying to keep going anyway, but Phil told me to stop and get my breathing under control. We kept going once I was able to breathe again. When we were passing the coaches on the fourth lap, Phil asked me if I wanted him to get them to bring my inhaler over to the side of the course so I could take it for the last lap. I'm quite thankful for his presence of mind because it was a great idea and it did help a little bit to ger around the last lap. It took them a little while to find it, but Shane handed me the inhaler just as we were heading for our fifth lap. And to top off the adventure, I took a nice tumble off the course somewhere in the mddle of it all. There was a spot on the course where the tracks were set too close to the edge of the trail and somehow a hole had formed that, when I somehow stumbled into it, made me completely lose my balance and fall into a ditch! Apparently, it looked pretty funny; I wish someone got a picture or video. Also apparently I wasn't the only VI skier who fell there.
So, needless to say, I was pretty tired today. We went up to ski in the later afternoon. The skiing went quite well with Phil showing me a few technique adjustments and a better position to get around corners. The shooting really didn't go well so tomorrow's race might be interesting again. But since I haven't had too much coaching in shooting lately, I was told to regard tomorrow's race as more of a practice so I will not stress out about it and just take everything in stride. Something's got to go right for me here and tomorrow is my last race and therefore my last chance!
We are racing the short biathlon tomorrow so I had better go to bed and get some sleep.
Good night from Sochi.
Good luck with your race. I'm glad that they told you not to stress over it because I know what you would've been worrying about it. Focus on your breathing when you you come into the range and when you're shooting. I love you and can't wait for you to come home.
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