Close in the End

Returning home to Canada after the Games was not the easiest. It is never easy to travel when you feel sick. And the first few days at home, I did very little, between trying to recover from illness, and recover physically, mentally and emotionally, post Games took a heavy toll. Working through countless ideas and thoughts, reflections, questions and answers. There was a lot and nothing going on, both at the same time. After a few days, I felt healthy enough and tried to get out and start preparing somewhat for the final event of the season. Part of my strategy post the Games was to ease down from the high of the Games with an event or some races. As a way to ease out of the season and transition into a rest period. It was just my luck that the Canadian Biathlon Nationals were held in Canmore the last week of March. A perfect fit for what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to do what I could, no pressure, but a great way to engage with the Biathlon community and have some fun.

Sprint at Canadian Biathlon Nationals. PC: Emily Dickson

I didn’t set any expectations for Nationals. I expected that they wouldn’t go all that well after the Games and illness over the past three weeks. So, it was about seeing how the shooting would go and ski as well as I could but not expecting any magic. I was pleasantly surprised throughout the week at my performances and results. A bit of the excellent form I had in Italy was still there.

The first race was the Sprint. The Sprint uses the 3.3km course out of the Biathlon stadium, and it is perhaps one of the toughest courses on the World Cup circuit. What a way to get back into racing. My body was not exactly excited about the race, but I figured it wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the hard effort it needed. If I were to improve my skiing over the week, I would need this hard effort to kick things off. Paired with fresh snow, that was a very long Sprint race, as the winning time was 34 minutes. No part of that race felt great, but it still resulted in a tenth-place finish in Open Men (seventh in Senior Men). That was shockingly one of my best results in an able-bodied field in several years. It took some time to recover from the effort, but later that day, I started to come around.

If there was ever going to be a race that I would challenge the best in Canada, it was in the second race, the Individual. One of the reasons I love competing domestically in able-bodied fields is the opportunity to race with and around other athletes. This race was a great example of that. The athlete who started 15sec behind me, we ended up skiing within seconds of each other. I had fantastic skis for most of the course, which helped a lot. The other athlete, go figure, had good skis in the one section where mine weren’t as good. It became a race within a race, which was a lot of fun for me. In the end, it was a great result, but I felt a little disappointed. I felt I had wasted an incredible opportunity. Apparently, I had great ski fitness (not that I would have believed it yet), rockets for skis, and a skiing partner to push me. Everything aligned for me to take a serious run at a nationals podium result. I felt I wasted the opportunity because I missed two shots. The 45-second penalty per miss was enough to push me off the podium, and I ended up fourth (I was only a minute and twelve seconds behind the winner). That evening was a great night at the Nationals Banquet, where I brought the medals and shared them with everyone. I put a lot of value on my role in sharing the medals. Once they come home, I have always felt the medals are not for me. I want to share them with everyone. After Vancouver, one of Canada’s medal-winning women's speed skaters shared her desire to have a million kids hold her medal. That statement resonated with me, and I have tried to apply the same philosophy to my own medals.

Saturday was the Mass Start 60. A newer format that I had never competed in. My first impression is that it is chaos for the first two or three laps. How it works: you have up to 60 starters in a field. It is a Mass Start, so everyone starts together. All the skiers complete the first lap. At the end of the first lap, those with bib numbers 1-30 bypass the range and continue for another lap. While bib numbers 31-60 go to the range and complete their first shooting bout. After bibs 1-30 finish their second lap, they then enter the range for their first bout. By this time, bibs 31-60 are completing their second lap, and they then bypass the range to go out for their third lap. As everyone comes to their second bout of shooting, the field is theoretically spread out enough to allow everyone to shoot normally, and the rest of the race goes as normal. Being my first time, it felt like chaos, but it was organized enough to work. I usually struggle to get started in mass starts, and it was a hard pace from the gun. So, I needed to take some time and settle into my race. It showed as I missed a single shot in my first two bouts. I was making up a little ground, but not a lot. It wasn’t until the latter two bouts, as I went clean, that I suddenly made huge jumps forward. Coming out of the third bout in seventh. I lost a couple of places over the lap. Then, with cleaning the final bout, I jumped ahead once again, and into the final lap I started in second, and could see first. But I knew better; there were some fast skiers coming up right behind me. I was quickly passed and dropped to third. I managed to hold for a bit before two skiers caught and passed me, leaving me in fifth in Open Men. And again, fourth in Senior Men. It was a fun race; the body was suffering a little and had very little energy left. I was a touch disappointed again that I missed, and that would have made for a fun final lap if I had gone clean on the day. For the second race in a row, I had been so close.

The final day of Nationals was a Single Mixed Relay. Another format I had never done (or at least, not properly). One of the aspects of Relays is that for each bout, you are given three extra bullets. Unfortunately, because I was using my air rifle, it was not possible to use spare bullets in the normal sense. If I were to need any, I would need to put in a completely new mag. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to deal with that, or I had scared myself into not needing to use any. On both legs, I went clean and didn’t have to deal with spares. There was definitely some thinking, overthinking, happening during that last bout, but I made sure I hit all my targets. Because of that, I tagged my partner for the final time in third place, just ahead of fourth. They had a fantastic final bout of shooting, but the rifle harness got caught up, and that cost the precious few seconds that in the end would be the difference between third and where we ended up in fourth. My third consecutive fourth-place finish. This was an amazing event for me. It was exactly what I needed and what I had planned. A near-perfect way to end the season!

Cavendish Beach North

A week later, I was travelling across the country and spent the next couple of weeks enjoying the muddy season on Prince Edward Island. And as it was the off-season, I got to enjoy several Burger Love entries. An Island-wide promotion, now in its 15^th season, during the month of April. Where restaurants across the Island create unique burgers, using local or Island products. Some creations are wonderful; others are more of an acquired taste. I felt there were two types of burgers: some were more mainstream, while others trended towards artisanal. Regardless, they were all great. I used my time on the Island to spend it with the community, sharing my medals. I visited some schools and spent time with a few aspiring athletes, some preparing for next year's Canada Winter Games, and others as they start to transition towards National team selections and competitions. As well as spending time with my parents, I simply let my body and, eventually, my mind rest and recover. It was very much the shoulder season, and so it was hard to do much of anything outside just yet. And I was good with that. I did head to the beach, dressed like it was winter, for some easier runs. It had been warmer in Italy for the Games than it was with the brisk wind off the ocean.

A question I have asked myself, but as I have also been asked: What’s next? The exciting part of that question is that I don’t know yet. What I know for sure is I will be competing this upcoming season. With a focus set on a majority of the World Cup season and two World Championships. Cross Country will be in Finsterau, Germany, at the end of January. A return to the venue that hosted Worlds in 2017. Biathlon will be at the end of February, returning to Pokljuka, Slovenia. I put school on hold over the winter semester to focus on the Games. So, I plan to get back into the learning mindset over the summer and continue that through the fall and winter. I’m slowly getting closer to completing a degree, but it’ll still take some time before I do. At the moment, I feel it’s the pre-planning stage. There are hundreds of ideas floating around. Thousands of thoughts. I’ll take some time and sort through them, seeing where they take me. From how or where I want to train. What should I focus on in my training? What do I want to keep consistent, and where do I need to make changes? It is not all sport-related. Over the past few years, I have learned and believe in the power of opportunities outside of sport. I know I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning. There is a need to discover who I am when I take off the bib.

For now, the bib is staying on! I might not be sure what I will be doing yet, but the date is circled on the calendar: March 2, 2030!