National Biathlon Team Camp

Here's Walt's report on the US Biathlon Team camp in Lake Placid:

Last month I spent two phenomenal weeks training in Lake Placid with old friends, and, although it’s been nearly a month since the camp ended, I promised Nathan I would recount a bit of it for the blog anyway. So here it goes…

On June 8^th I arrived at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid for a two-week camp with the US Biathlon Team. Following my results at our national championships in Minnesota and the Canadian national championships in Vancouver last spring I was named to a discretionary spot on the Senior National B team for the 2008-2009 season. I won’t be able to take full advantage of all the opportunities this spot provides this year because I’m still a full-time student, but I knew before I left that two weeks in Lake Placid with National Team and USOC staff would be an amazing learning opportunity.

The plan for the camp was to bring a large group of athletes together in order to create World Cup-like competitive environments, especially on the range. We also planned to train a lot. A lot. After a great dinner catching up with old friends that first night, I went to bed feeling both apprehension and excitement about the coming work.

The planned training for the camp called for nearly 50 hours in 13 days, more than I had ever attempted before in such a short amount of time, so I tried to prepare myself mentally for what lay ahead. The tone of the camp was established on the very first workout, though, leaving no doubt as to what the next two weeks would feel like. The morning of the 9^th we did a three-hour bike ride featuring 3 twenty-minute threshold intervals, each one a continuous hill climb with 1,200ft elevation gain. Couple that with 90 degree, 90 percent humidity type weather, and the first week became a big sweaty blur. Add the time we spent shooting on the range, and most days we were simply on the go from 8am to 5pm, with a brief interlude for eating and sleeping around lunch.

The second week seemed to be much more manageable, however, even though the training load was virtually the same. It was broken up by a great swim/run time trial (Forrest, if you are reading this, you’ll be happy to know I had to break out the doggy paddle half way through the swim), head-to-head shooting competitions, and a VO2 max test done roller skiing in the center’s physiology lab. I also got to have personal meetings with physiologists and sports psychologists from the USOC who are now working with the biathlon team. Needless to say, I learned a lot from them.

I was pretty excited once the camp was over, not only for having completed so much hard training in such a short amount of time, but also because of all the great conversations I was able to have with the other athletes, coaches, and staff about how some of the best skiers in the world are training today. At the same time, however, coming back to Brunswick was bittersweet – two weeks with nothing to do in the world but train is a pretty great lifestyle. It’s going to be tough once school starts again!