La Patrie 2010

Ashton finishing
crossing the line
hitting some targets

Juan starting
Chester looking intense
Jackson getting ready to enter the pain cave


Emelie and Carter

snowy range
Group in the lodge
Emelie pushing hard up hill
Juan flying
Carter
Chester and Jackson battle it out

On the weekend of January 17th, a group of Southern Maine Biathlon Club athletes traveled up to La Patrie, Canada to participate in a NorAm. A group of athletes, consisting of Emelie Chace Donahue, Juan Mesones, Ashton Cushman, Jackson Hall, Carter Hall and Chester Jacobs headed up on Thursday Afternoon with Mike Yeo, Connor Cushman, Joel Hinshaw, and Skip Cushman. Arriving in La Patrie around 8:00pm, we were pleasantly surprised with amazing sleeping arrangements. In our minds it was a mansion, with at least 4 tv's, 2 kitchens, and 10 beds.
On Friday after a quick breakfast we went over the Biathlon center to get some skiing in before lunch. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great as it was about 35 degrees with a little bit of drizzling rain, but we made the best of the situation and skied our course for the next day. After a long lunch back at the mansion we headed back again to get some shooting practice before the race the next day. On Friday night a group of about 6 MWSC athletes came join us in our mansion and after a nice dinner and some quality movies we headed upstairs for a nice rest before the big day on Saturday.
Saturday morning brought clouds and delicious pancakes. After some lounging around we headed up to the Biathlon Center to get ready for our races. Everyone was racing around noon time. Chester, Jackson, and Ashton raced in the "Senior Boys" category in which they used .22 rifles. Juan, Carter, and Emelie raced in the air rifle category. Everyone held their own in the races and had fun! Juan ended up winning a hard fought battle for first place in his category. By the end of the race it was snowing profusely and everyone was tired, hungry, and ready to go back to the mansion. That is just what we did, and a few more quality movies and 20lbs pounds of food later we headed off to bed, tired, but satisfied with a good day of racing behind us. Sunday brought sunshine and yummy bacon egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches. While eating breakfast we watched "Bachelors in Skating" for the third time to get some inspiration for our races today. The sunshine and warm temperatures didn't last long though because by race time it was quite cloudy and a wee bit colder.
Once again the races were great and everybody came away from the weekend with more experience in this exceedingly difficult sport to master. Some people got even more than experience, Ashton won a jewelry box, and Jackson won a heart rate monitor. All in all it was a great weekend and I personally can't wait for the next SMBC trip.

Results can be found at http://www.biathloncanada.ca/main.php?p=3876&lan=1

Thank you Hall's and Skip Cushman for great photographs.

-Jackson Hall (Elite Athlete and Co-Baller)