Christmas break!

After the mixed relay in Pokljuka our team made their way back to Munich, where we all parted different ways for the next couple days. Megan headed to Switzerland to visit some friends, Zina met up with her boyfriend Ian and went to Austria to meet up with Z's parents, JP and his wife went off to Paris, Nathan was off to France, Geret, wax techs, and our massage therapist Scott Edmunds are on their way back to Canada, Tom is off to Sweden, Scott, Marco and Jean made their way to Ridnaun and Brendan and I made it to Venice, Italy! 

B and I had the afternoon to enjoy some pizza, take in some sights and learn about the Carnivale here in Venice. Every where you go vendors and stores are selling these amazing masks. This is what we learned! Carnivale started as a time for celebration and expression throughout the classes, as wearing masks hid any form of identity between social classes. Masks have always been a central feature of the Venetian carnival; traditionally people were allowed to wear them between the festival of Santo Stefano (St. Stephen's Day, December 26) and the start of the carnival season and midnight of Shrove Tuesday. They have always been around Venice. As masks were also allowed Ascension and from October 5 to Christmas, people could spend a large proportion of the year in disguise. Maskmakers (mascherari) enjoyed a special position in society, with their own laws and their own guild. 

The next couple days will be spent exploring and recovering before making our way to Ridnaun to start training again. We will be there from the 24th onwards and spend Christmas day with most of the team. 

Quick recap on my sprint race in Pokljuka; I was still sick when Saturday rolled around, but really wanted to race. I wasn't as bad as the beginning of the week but still not 100%. But when you are racing against the best in the World being a little bit sick can push you way far back. Shooting was poor and skiing was slow, I hit 6/10 and came 91st. What I learned is that there is no point in racing when you are not 100%. It knocks down your self esteem and makes recovery take even longer. 

Our next set of races start on January 5th in Oberhof, Germany then Ruhpolding and then home! It will be different being away from my family for Christmas, but I have my amazing boyfriend and great friends to keep the good times coming! 

Wishing you all happy holidays!

Cheers

Rosanna

sLOVEnia

We are now in the town of Bled, Slovenia. Today is the 15km Individual but sadly I will not be racing. I have come down with a cold and racing while sick is never a good idea. I was really hoping to make it through the season without getting sick, so hopefully this will be the only time (knock on wood).

The men race their 20km at 10:30 today and Brendan is lucky number 2!! Seems like he has been at the start of every race so far this year!  

Thinking healthy vibes! 

Cheers

Rosanna

this was the Slovenia saying from the Olympics! 

snow, snow, snow

I sit here trying to find the words that can describe my sprint race on Friday, some that come to mind are; frustrated, so close, one more shot, good effort, so close. As you might have guessed I didn't make the pursuit race. I hit 8/10 one miss prone, one miss standing and ended up 70th, about 20 seconds out of top 60. It hasn't stopped snowing since Thursday so the trails were soft and visibility was poor. I was one of the last starters and the snow and wind seemed to be coming on pretty strong right when I started. I am happy with how my skiing is improving, I am much more consistent than last year, and feel much stronger. Zina also had two penalties finishing in 62nd, Megan had 4 and finished in 80th. 

snow on our balcony Wednesday evening

snow the next morning

Salmon car that didn't get moved since Thursday

Saturday was the 4X6km relay, for those of you who might not know how a biathlon relay works I will give you a quick explanation. Each person skis 6km with two shootings and for each shooting you get 3 extra bullets. So that is 16 bullets to hit 10 targets, if you still miss then it is off to the loop of shame. Our relay order was Megan, Zina, Me, Melanie. Megan had a good start using 3 spares in her standing and tagging off to Zina in 9th or 10th. Zina needed two spares for prone and had one miss in standing, so unfortunately a loop, tagging off to me in 11th. I was pretty close behind Italy as I came into my prone shooting and used two spares. Standing was clean with no spare and I tagged off to Melanie still in 11th. Mel had a good prone bout with no spares and two spares in standing. We finished in 11th. Not too bad, but with some better shooting on all our parts we could have done much better. This was a good improvement from our relay last year in Ruhpolding with the same team, still one penalty but we were 16th. 

The guys raced a sprint on Friday as well, in the same snowy conditions. Yesterday was their pursuit race with some tough shooting and then today they raced their relay. Brendan was the first leg of the race, and had a great start, he used two spares in standing and tagged off to Nathan in 8th only 30 secs behind the leaders. Nathan and Scott both had some trouble in these windy conditions and ended up with some penalty loops. They finished 16th out of 26 teams. 

mens start

Brendan after his prone shooting

Tomorrow we will train in Hochfilzen before driving to Slovenia for the last World Cup before Christmas. 

Cheers

Rosanna

Sunshine and snow storms

After a pretty chill travel day we arrived in Hochfilzen, Austria. We are staying at a nice hotel about 10mins from the range and the first day we got here the sun was shinning and it was +6! We all took the time to defrost from chilly Sweden, before the weather changes on us. And change it has, the weather forecast is calling for 70cm  of snow between today and Sunday. 

Tomorrow is the first race, 10km sprint for the men starting at 11:30 and 7.5km sprint for the ladies starting at 2:30. Yesterday our team grew by two with Scott Perras and Melanie Schultz joining our happy family! The men have 4 start spots so Scott will be staying with the WC team until after xmas, but unfortunately the women only have 3 starts so Mel is just here to race the relay on Saturday before going to Martel to race the IBU races. 

There are a few new things that we encounter in Europe every year and this year I have come across shelf toilets. I am just going to let your imagination run wild with that one, but it's weird. 

Happy trails!

Rosanna

Another one bites the dust

It was a tough day at the office yesterday, as my teammate Zina put it! It was a balmy -22 all day here in Ostersund and by 3:30 it had only warmed up to -19.2. Meaning it was a bit touch and go if the race would start. We have a -20 cut off for racing in biathlon and as zero loomed closer the clouds rolled in and it started to snow and the temperature stayed around -19, race start a GO! I was bib #87, meaning a 6:03pm start. I was feeling really confident heading into this race, I was feeling strong and ready to race my favourite race, the 7.5km Sprint! 

Zero went well and I was ready to rock as 6:03 rolled around. Things went great off the start, I was skiing strong and feeling good. I came into my first shooting and hit 5 nice and quick. As I left the range I was in 30th place, a great spot to be! Skiing around my second 2.5km loop I stayed in that same position coming into the range for my standing shooting. The cold always makes it a bit slower shooting, so my set up was sluggish and my eyeballs were frozen because my glasses had frozen up, never mind that just focus on hitting the black. Miss, miss, re set, miss, deep breath, hit, miss. I dropped my head in amazement that I had just missed 4 targets. This is not what I do, I am good at shooting. As I skied around and around the penalty loop I could feel my hopes of making the top 60 slipping away. Still I had one loop to go and no point is skiing slow! I crossed the finish line disappointed and angry. But on the up side I did accomplish my skiing goal. To push hard off the start and not loose so much time on my second lap. I felt strong out there skiing and know that it will only get better the more racing I do. The shooting will come, like it always does! 

The other ladies had a tough time on the range as well. Megan finish 69th with 0 miss prone and 3 miss standing, Zina was 84th with 2 miss prone and 3 miss standing. So no pursuit for us, you need to make the top 60 in order to get to race the 10km pursuit. There is a lot of season left as Megan nicely put it, but it still stings! 

The weekend will be spent cheering on the boys and getting some training in.  Today the men race at 2:20, Brendan being bib #2!!! JP #50 and Nathan #57. I am sending out good shooting vibes to them and hopefully they will do much better than we did! Monday we head to Hochfilzen, Austria for the next set of races; sprint, relay and pursuit. Here we will have a good contingent of Canadian parents come out to cheer us on! Brendan's and Nathan's mom and dad as well as Zina's I think. 

top three results from the day

1st - Kaisa Makarainen 10/10

2nd - Miri Gossner 10/10

3rd - Darya Domracheva 9/10

Cheers

Rosanna

this is from the Individual 

World Cup number one.

And so the season has begun! Yesterday evening was the first World Cup race of the year, and they started it off with our hardest race, the 15km Individual, 4 shootings and 1min penalties for any misses. This race is all about the shooting, because it is pretty hard to ski a minute off your time. In order to reach the fans here in Ostersund, Sweden race start was at 4:20pm, prime time in Euro land! So my day was pretty chill, roll out of bed around 9am to an excellent spread of breakfast food here at the Scandic city hotel, go for a little jog around the lake with Brendan, stretch and dry fire, eat some lunch, rest, eat some more food (all about having the energy for that 50min race) and head over to the sight just before 3. I have been feeling pretty good this week and shooting has been excellent since we arrived in Sweden. I was feeling confident and really excited to start racing. Individuals are always few and far between and we never really do long races in training, so it is a bit of a guess on how to pace your self. 

I was bib number 78 out of 96 women, starting at 4:59. My plan was to pace my self at a just below race pace and really focus on the shooting.The course here is pretty challenging, it is 3km, where you climb, then tuck all the way to the bottom of the trails, ski back up, down again, back up and then down into the range. Lots of climbing and with the cold temperatures we were having here it made for some slow snow. I came into my first prone and shot clean, nice way to start it off. Back around the 3km loop and into my first standing shooting, 1miss, second prone, 1miss, last standing (side note, because of the cold it made the mats super slick) legs are shaking from skiing and I am clinging on for dear life to my mat in order to not slip, and clean!! Phew, 18/20 not too shabby! 

I ended up 69th, longer races have always been my nemesis but I am very happy with how well I pushed through out the race and if some one caught me I stuck on them, using them to help me ski faster! On my last loop it was me and this Finnish girl and we got to hammer it out, it's always fun to be out there with someone!  

Today will be pretty chill in preparation for tomorrows 7.5km sprint. The men race today at 5:20pm so 9:20am Canmore time if you've got some time and want to catch some sweet Biathlon action!! Brendan is bib #14.  http://www.biathlonworld.com/en/home.html

here are the top three results from yesterday

1st - Anna Carin Zidek 20/20

2nd - Marie Laure Brunet 18/20

3rd - Helena Ekholm 18/20

Canadian's

49th - Zina Kocher 17/20

69th - Rosanna Crawford 18/20

84rd - Megan Imrie 14/20

here's a link to full results 

Race start is 5:20pm tomorrow, so another long day of waiting. 

Wish me luck!

cheers

Rosanna

out for a morning run around the lake, finally seeing some sunshine!

yours truly

Mr Green!

 Today was Salomon ski, boots and bindings first biathlon podium! Great job Anna!