It is now one month out from the start of the Biathlon World Cup season and I am SO excited. I hope you all are too. With most of the hard work behind me I thought I would do a recap of the summer and fall training. Everyone knows good skiers are built in the summer, but not everyone knows just how much work gets put in for the winter competition months.
This training year I am following a 650 hour plan and hoping to hit around 600 hours depending on if I get sick or need more recovery from harder weeks. Last year I completed around 550 hours. I'm not super strict when it comes to hitting my hours each week or training block, I just make sure I get good work done each week. Quality over quantity as they say.
May: building the base at home
The training year for me (like most other xc skiers) started May 1st. This first month of training is focused on building a good base. Lots of longer level 1 workouts and some chill threshold level 3 intervals. This block for me was spent at home in Minneapolis doing a lot of long exploration bike rides and rollerskis with my Snø Racing teammates and other friends around the cities.
Biking around Minneapolis.
Lake Placid with the national team
Up next came my first big training camp of the year with the US Biathlon National Team in Lake Placid, NY. We stay at the Olympic Training Center there and have access to a great rollerski track and range at Mt Van Hoevenberg. I love training in LP because it's smack dab in the middle of the Adirondacks. One of my favorite over distance training modes is a long hike/run in the mountains. These are especially fun when I get to recruit my friends who live around the area to explore the woods with me. This camp is fun because it's our first time back as a team after the season ends so it's good to see my biathlon teammates again and get some solid training done together. We do a lot of shooting work and start incorporating combo workouts at this camp, getting back into shooting for the first time after the competition season.
On a dreary day hiking the Trap Dike with friends.
Back to Cable and the REG
After Lake Placid I got to come back home for a couple of weeks, see my family and train with Snø Racing before leaving again, this time heading to Cable, WI to train alongside the Central Regional Elite Group. This camp is especially fun because I grew up going to REG and it had a big impact on my ski career. It's really cool to connect with the next generation of Midwest athletes and share my journey because I was in the same spot as them just a few (getting to be a LOT) of years ago. We did workouts on the rollerski track at the American Birkebeiner start area and I got to shoot some rounds at the new Telemark biathlon range. The REG coaches let my former USBA teammates Jake Brown and Paul Schommer along with newly appointed Endurance United head coach Emma Stertz host a biathlon clinic for the skiers, which was super fun and hopefully will get more skiers interested in biathlon and show them that there's other cool options in sport.
Cable biathlon range! It is now fully paved and ready for action.
Three weeks in Craftsbury
Up next I traveled out east again to train in Craftsbury, VT for three weeks with the Women's national biathlon team. I had never trained in Craftsbury in the summer so this was a cool opportunity to explore that area and get to know all the Green Racing Project athletes, including the rowers, better. It's always fun to connect with other professional athletes outside of the world of skiing and see what their training and competition lives are like. This block of training introduced harder level 4, race pace, intervals and concluded with Biathlon summer nationals races in Jericho, VT.
Summer nationals podium with Margie Freed and Chloe Levins.
After summer nationals I hurried back home to Minneapolis for a KE$HA concert that kicked off my rest week and three weeks at home to reset and regroup with Snø Racing. During this time my training highlights were venturing to Elk River to shoot at the biathlon range up there and getting roped into a "super chill level one afternoon run" with the LNR comp and devo teams that ended up being an orienteering race that I REFUSED to not race and went way too hard finding all the checkpoints.
Lake Placid, a road trip and altitude
This brings us to the end of August and my most recent training block away from home. I started in Lake Placid with our yearly USBA VO2 max testing and time trials. This time of year we are putting together all the pieces of shooting and ski speed, trying to get used to shooting after a harder effort. I am still doing lots of level one hours, OD hikes and skis and bikes, but adding in some harder intervals to get ready to race.
After three weeks in LP with the biathlon team, it was time for a rest week. My mission was to drive from Lake Placid all the way to Park City, UT for my final camp of the summer/fall training season. I of course took the long way there through DC and Nashville and Amarillo and Moab because when else am I going to have a week to drive around the country by myself? I definitely went through some places I need to go to again, like the Great Smoky Mountains and maybe Oklahoma to do some storm chasing, but that's for a post-pro skiing adventure.
Finally made it to Park City for altitude camp. I stayed up super high with the USBA team in Deer Valley at 8,000ft. Sleeping at that high of an altitude is rough on your body, but great for red blood cell production, so rest and recovery was super important at this camp. This was the last super important big block of training for the year. I did lots of hours and hard intervals, putting together everything I learned over the summer in my shooting and skiing technique. The second weekend of camp was trials to qualify for the on-snow Europe camp where we decide our final World Cup roster. This year I did not need to stress about these races because the national team was prequalified for this camp, but it was still good to get some hard racing in and see how the fitness and shooting has come along. I spent one more week in Utah after these races to finish the altitude training block and then got to head home for some rest before heading to Europe for the season.
Training with Canadian Biathlon friends in Park City!
First signs of snow in Utah.
What's next
That brings us to now! Currently I am at home finishing up a recovery week before my last two weeks at home. These weeks after altitude camp are critical to get in some really hard and fast workouts before the racing season. I did a 10k skate time trial this past weekend in Cable with some central college teams, and in the next few weeks I will do some level 5 (!!!) all-out intervals to prepare my body for the upcoming World Cup season.
Coming up next I leave for a Europe on-snow camp in Obertilliach, Austria on November 7th with the US Biathlon team where I will compete with 5 other women for a spot on our 4-person World Cup roster. I am pretty confident in my odds of making that team, but a spot is never yours until it's yours! I can't wait to get on snow and to see the results of all the training I put in this summer.
Ciao! Luci
PS. The first IBU World Cup of the year is in Kontiolahti, Finland November 26-29th. You can watch these races for FREE on Eurovision Sport and if you're interested in more data you can follow along on the IBU app on any device. This winter I will be competing mostly in Biathlon with a few pure XC races sprinkled in. You can follow along with my season on my Instagram @lucinderella or through the @sno.racing or @usbiathlonteam pages.