lucky charm

Ruhpolding Germany seems to be holding the trend of first's for me. It was where I competed in my first World Youth/Junior Champs, my first World Cup and now where I finished my first World Cup pursuit. The fog from Oberhof seemed to have followed us and we were not impressed. The first race was an Individual race on Thursday and the coaches had decided that Melanie would race that one and I would race the sprint  on Saturday. It was raining most of the week and by Thursday it had turned into torrential down pour. I have never raced nor seen anyone race in rain like this. Needless to say I did not envy the girls doing a 15km race in the that! I am pretty sure they were wringing out their boots for days! 

Now before I forget Ruhpolding has gotten a makeover this past summer and now the course runs much smoother, but it now has some dozy of a downhills and a grunt of an up hill. On training days girls were terrified to go down this one hill and I have never seen so many crashes on one course. Even your downhill expert Canadian girls didn't come off unscathed. As Saturday rolled around the rain had let up a bit and by race time it had stopped. I have always loved the Ruhpolding range, there is almost never wind and the run in into it is really easy. I started bib #77 and came into my prone bout, 5/5, excellent back out on course. Up the monster up hills and down the epic down hills that make you squeal! Into the range for standing shooting, set up and 5/5 nice and quick, ah the joy of hitting 10/10! I had to hammer out my last loop in order to make the pursuit, but in the end was 57th. The course here was smoking fast from the rain and the course being salted, the winning time was 20mins!! That is really fast for a 7.5km sprint! 

The weather for the pursuit was again nice with no rain. My race started off well with hitting 9/10 in my prone, my first standing bout I missed two. As I left the penalty loop I knew that I would have to hammer out my 4th loop in order to not be lapped by the leaders. I started 3mins behind the winner and the 2km loop was taking less than 6mins! As I climbed the last hill before the range Tora Berger was right behind me, so sprint loop into the range for my last standing! I missed two again and crossed the line in 58th, but I didn't get lapped and I am pumped on that! I left some room for improvement on the shooting side and was really happy with how I attacked the course skiing. 

That evening we packed up the van and drove to Munich. Monday I was supposed to be back in Canmore. Unfortunately our plane left Munich late and we didn't make our connection to Calgary. After 4hours of waiting in different lines to try and make another flight to Canada we were stuck in Frankfurt for another night. We were not impressed After two months in Europe we were all very ready to be home. Our travel on Tuesday went smoothly and I was in Canmore by 6pm. 

Now I have two weeks at home to recovery and get some volume in before heading to the States for two World Cups. I am now qualified through to World Champs in Russia and will be gone for another 2months. 

See you on the trails!

Rosanna