Monday, July 13, 2009

Fort Kent Biathlon Training Camp

Monday morning we drive up to Fort Kent for a week long training camp. There were about 20 athletes and three coaches. When we arrived in Fort Kent and got settled into cabins we went on a walk/jog tour of the town.

Overall we had one day of rain, and five beautiful days. We did lots of skiing and shooting, as well as swimming and laughing. We went through a couple boxes of Band-Aids, but everybody came home in one smiling piece.

Tuesday and Wednesday

visual shooting activity
Ian
Gary enjoying the sun
Drew playing soccer
Soccer and relaxing
skiing
Eva skiing
the lodge
air rifles
Wheelie!
Chester
technique
Kellan
Mike
Joel
group ski
Tara and Tiki zeroing
Tom and Drew

Drew Ian and Kellan in the Rain
Carrie
Group Ski
Chester Tom and Tara Shooting
Drills

Unfortunately, the first full day of camp was soggy and cold. Tuesday morning we did some shooting, air rifles and .22's, and we also did some skate roller-skiing. We did more roller-skiing in the afternoon, and ran home from the lodge on the ATV trails. After dinner we all went to the lodge to watch a skate technique video and clean rifles.

On Wednesday everyone woke up to the shining sun. Our positive attitudes towards the rain the day before brought us great weather. In the morning we did lots of shooting and lots of skate roller-skiing. In the afternoon we did a lot of skate roller-ski technique work, and then everybody went out on their own or in small groups to practice.

Thursday

Lucy
Swimming
Eva and Sarah W
Sarah B
Kellan Chester and Ian
Setting up paper targets
at Long Lake
Sarah B, Kellan and Mike in the Lake

Thursday was a beautiful day. Sun was shining, it was warm, blue sky, all the works. Everyone piled into the vans and we took a scenic ride to Long Lake. We skied an "over distance" workout (or long-slow-distance) along the lake for 1-2 hours, some classicing and some skating. It was hot and some of the boys even tried to get Camelback tan lines. After the long hot ski, everyone took a refreshing dip in the lake. After lunch everyone went shooting. We mostly worked on range procedure and worked on going from skiing to the rifle rack to the mat and doing everything slowly, safely and correctly. Then we went swimming again. After dinner we watched some wrestling matches from the high school ski camp which were very amusing, and ended the day with a walk and an ice cream cone.

Friday


Jacuzzi falls- best swimming spot
Drew Jackson Chester Tom Kellan Mike Ian
throwing Olivia in the river

Carter was way into swimming
Tom dominating Fish River

Friday was a very hot sunny day. The Maine high school camp was having a classic sprint time trial on Friday morning. Everybody watched that, and some did a little bit of roller-skiing in between races. After lunch our camp mixed with county middle school racing camp and we did some circuits and ski technique drills with Austin. After that we played games and relaxed more. There was lots of swimming in the afternoon. At around 4pm we mixed our camp, the Maine high school camp, and the county middle school camp, broke into groups of five and did some fun orienteering around the town on Fort Kent. After dinner about half the kids went back to 10th Mountain Center to do some shooting with biathlete BethAnn Chamberlain, and the other half went out to ice cream and played "WA".

Saturday and Sunday

Alex
Olivia
Tara Jackson
hanging out at the range
Eli
Carter
shooting
Chester

After breakfast on Saturday morning, Chester, Ian, Tom, Olivia, Tara, and Sarah B jumped into the 5K high school skate time trial. Everybody did a great job. It was a little bit intimidating but great training and a lot of fun! The rest of the campers roller-skied and cheered on the racers. Then there was lots of swimming and relaxing in the sun. After lunch we had a talk by David Chamberlain about the journey to becoming an elite skier which was very interesting. Before dinner we played some fun biathlon games with the .22's like "king of the range". After dinner we went back to the range and did some fun roller-skiing/shooting races. Then we watched a movie and cleaned rifles at the lodge. On Sunday everyone went on a long roller-ski and after lunch we packed up and headed home.