Coach Liz and the Frozen Tundra.

Hi everyone! This is Lucy, back from the frozen tundra of Grand Rapids, MN (though Lake Placid and Mt. Ste. Anne are due to be pretty cold too). Anyway, I thought I would just give a little more behind the scenes run down of the week, but thank you to Dana for taking care of the blog in a more timely fashion!

We left Lake Placid Tuesday night, and flew out uneventfully early Wednesday morning (except for some reshuffling of bags so that I wouldn't need to pay extra...) After waiting for an hour in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport for a rental car, we got on our way. It was cold. As my first real winter biathlon experience aside from the shooting Jackie and I had done on Tuesday, it was quite the introduction. Cold is one thing when you are skiing, but when you need to stop and shoot, lie on the ground, and wear gloves and not lobster claws, it is undoubtedly colder.

The next day was race day (moved to the afternoon due to cold and a day earlier, again, due to the cold). It was fun! Jackie had a great race, and Tim and I skied well, but didn't put the shooting quite together. It is worth noting that I had the worst shooting of anyone in both the men's and the women's field. Perhaps more perplexingly, after some disappointment, I would say this became a point of pride. It isn't everyday that you miss 8/10 targets, or at least, I hope not.

The second day was once again a mixed bag. The real highlight and important part of the day, though, was that we got to see...

This wonderful person (from India Harvey '17)

That's right. Liz. This is an old photo, because we were too cold and forgetful to take any new ones, but that's ok. Thank you to Liz and her friend for coming to watch us race almost 3 hours away in miserable cold (people raced in vests underneath their bibs). It cannot have been fun, but it was fun to see Liz!

The race the next day was cancelled due to even colder temps. Although the high was a balmy -10ºF, when we woke up it was -23º, -44º with windchill. So, we stayed inside and adventured in the local Target. 

The last day, we got to ski with Liz again! This time in the slightly less frozen tundra of Minneapolis. It was still cold enough that we forgot to take pictures, though.

Thank you for everyone who cheered for us from afar, who reads the blog, and especially to Liz for braving the cold to deal with our usual nonsense. Check back soon, as the team is heading to Mt. Ste. Anne for our training camp and then to Maine for the Colby Carnival. Winter is upon us!