Mid Winter Update
(and the story of building a better boat when the seas get rough)
The podium ceremony for the 45 km Alley Loop marathon in Crested Butte, CO
Happy February Team!
After the roller coaster my race season has been these last two months, I am finally sending an overdue update. This email comes from Canmore, Canada as we are about to start the final races of the international season on the IBU Cup with a tour, 6 races in 8 days, and it is finally warming from the constant -20F or below this past week in a cold snap.
My last email came mid December, days before US Biathlon’s on-snow trials in northern VT, where athletes competed for spots on the IBU cup team for the rest of the season. I had mixed results in Sweden the weeks before trials and then completely fell apart in my mental game for the races in VT. Though I squeezed out one good race, two are needed to head back overseas resulting in the rest of my planned season disappearing in a weekend.
After the momentum I had last year, strong ski training all summer and the most intense desire to re-qualify, I was left in what I am now recognizing as a mental health mess. Which had been building all summer and fall, culminating at the most critical weekend of the season. My entire season plan and goals were now no longer possible as well as a complete lack of direction. A mental state I have learned many athletes go through and are often left unsupported in. The process of getting from that point to now has been a period of growth I never imagined and a huge positive in the long run. As they say - If the seas are always calm, we would never build a better boat. And thankfully, I am now in a better boat for sure.
The January Journey, as I’ll call it, is chronicled below. And quite the month it was, but for now, I am focusing on avoiding frostbite and enjoying the next 6 races in the beautiful Canadian Rockies and remembering just how much fun Biathlon racing is.
PLUS!!! You can now watch these races too! All IBU races are online here to live stream or watch later. There are cameras all over the course and on the range to watch the race. It is very well done, with racer data on screen and more. Check it out throughout the next week.
Racing on snow trials in Craftsbury, VT in late December
My post race Jack Nicholson impression caught on camera
Being on the podium for the 30 km classic race in Bozeman, MT
Racing to a frosty 2nd place in 4F in the 45 km skate race in CO
The January Journey
It is hard to explain how complicated the head space of full time competing and training can be. Athletes need to give up everything else in their lives to pursue being the best they possibly can be, and for some, that is a difficult task. For all, at some point, they are faced with a time when competing comes to an end and the question of “What Now?” needs to be answered.
Around Christmas time this year, I realized I was living in a space in between racing and the rest of my life, in particular how badly I was dealing with it. Having no income, having no place to live that was truly my own, having to rely and impose on others for so much of my daily needs, wanting so badly to have a broader impact on the world and having no idea what I would do without racing this year. Racing had become a way of validating all the sacrifices and choices I made to get to that point. Most of the fall and summer I was living in a state of high anxiety and high stress. Then the season began, adding travel, more expenses, and the feeling I needed to have the best results to show I was worth the investment from all sides (and of course I see now, to prove to myself it was worth it.)
Needless-to-say, this was not a position to perform my best or even be in a sustainable state. The way I viewed it at the time was essentially this: a single weekend would show me if everything I had done the past year was worth it or not. It seems obvious to me now how I totally lost touch with my mental performance for shooting during the trials. And the truly unfortunate part is that this view is not uncommon for athletes at big events, even as toxic as it is.
I came home for the holidays not wanting to talk to anyone, wanting to be totally alone, sleeping 12+ hours a day and totally unsure of what to do with myself without the next race or training plan to guide me. It occurred to me then, my winter season had been determined by a race schedule for the last 20 years of my life. I truly did not know what it was like to have an open calendar and it felt like failure because I thought I had given up everything to be racing.
Luckily I recognized I needed support in this and was beyond excited to deal with it. At first I said it without believing it, but now I know it is true - these are the moments you can become stronger than you ever have been because you went through it. With the help of some professionals and an amazing organization I was lucky enough to be a small part of already, Extra-Ordinaire, I started to rest, reframe, and remember I chose to do this because I loved it. I had already made it farther than I ever expected 4 years ago when I came out of retirement. It became clear I functionally “injured out” of the season, with anxiety and stress being a mental injury, but equally detrimental to performing well.
January became an opportunity to enjoy winter in Colorado for the first time since I was in high school. At first it was enjoying being in one place, then skinning up every mountain I could, then ski training again and finally looking for races around the west to go race for fun and win some money. There are of course many parts of that process I am leaving out for a post later on, but in short, redefining why I was racing, what my goals truly are and how I value myself became my focus. This led to gaining a deep understanding that results ultimately have little to do with your effort or performance and letting a ranking define you is asking for feelings of failure. And above all, having a team and goals outside of skiing is critical to finding balance and shaking the feeling of sacrificing everything for a single weekend of racing. This mental processing takes a lot of work and I am grateful Extra-Ordinarie connected me with a 10 week program through an organization called Athletes Soul, which has also been a critical part in this journey. I see now how tunnel vision can be good at times and very bad at times.
February 4th I raced my first marathon in 2 years with a few thousand spectators cheering and racing in Crested Butte, CO. I can’t recommend the Alley Loop enough, great race and scene. The next weekend I drove to Bozeman for the 30km Sacagawea Classic, my first classic race in 2 years (biathlon is only skate skiing), and was left sore for over a week. And then found out about 12 days ago I could finish the race season on the international biathlon circuit due to an opening on the team. This came after I had a full plan of racing the American Birkie and Rendezvous marathons for a local team of the Roaring Fork Valley, Mountain Flow, and had completely let go of the IBU Cup goals. It was a hard call, though in the end I am eager to be back in the US race suit and looking forward to many Birkies with Mountain Flow in the future.
I am still working on many things mentally and have come a long way, but eager to keep going. I am also eager to share my experience with other athletes, which I have learned are going through varying levels of mental health rough patches at an alarming rate. The amount of athletes I have already connected with has shown me the sports world is only built for looking at physical accomplishments. The general head space of athletes needs a lot of support and it is currently very limited in the US.
For this week though, I am enjoying racing again and enjoying the years of fitness and training I have put in as well as putting a few other irons in the fire outside of skiing for a bit of balance.
Thank you all so much for the support, cheering, funding and more. Having a team behind me means the world.