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April 2009 Update

Dear Sponsors, Friends, and Fans:

Hot pink headband. Extreme green stretchies. Radical orange shades basking my face in a fabulous eighties glow. Have I skied back in time you ask? No- it’s simply spring time in the Rockies! And there is no better closing ceremony for my wintery biathlon season than a sunny Hot Dog Day in Fernie.

Ending the season in style is a critical step in many a cold-weather athlete’s training regime. A festive hot dog day (read: 80’s day celebrated by all on the ski hill) eases the stress of being focused and highly competitive for the past 5 months. Add a splash of neon, and all those painful moments of lactic acid and frozen digits are twisted into a warm, buttery loaf, later to be misconstrued as fond memories. This is integral to our survival as athletes. In order to be hungry for more racing, more training and pain-ing, we have to do it up right every now and then.

But I digress. This winter for the first time in my life, I circumnavigated the globe. I began the year in the dark ‘Winter City’ of Ostersund, Sweden. Racing under giant floodlights due to the pitch black night that fell at 2pm. I Followed the biathlon circus through Austria, Germany, and Italy; the trio of old standby’s, but nevertheless extremely exciting. I encounter hundreds of thousands of fans at these venues, and I love them more each time.

The kicker this year was World Championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Finally! I’d been waiting. Practicing. Perfecting. And not just my biathlon skills…no, I had finely tuned my get-over-jetlag ability to a T. Excitingly enough, everything went as planned, and I had a personal best of 45th in the individual (120 starters), and the girls and I had a groovy relay result of 9th (26 teams), qualifying us four women for the Olympics. Woohoo!

About 10 peel-a-gourmet dinners and 5 ‘seat back and tray table upright’ speeches later, the entire biathlon family was on Canadian soil. The first Canuck World Cup biathlon event since ’99, and in western Canada to boot! Our team was stoked and ready for the test. It was a great help to have my family and friends roaring out encouragement as I left the start, the range, or bombed into the finish. I can’t wait for 2010 to roll around! Have your cowbells at the ready!

Immediately after throwing down another huge 9th place result in the Whistler relay (this time we were SO close to a ‘flower ceremony’6th place), we inhaled some pasta, changed out of our race suits, and checked our luggage in, all from the ‘comfort’ of our favorite 15 passenger van en route to yet another (sigh) airport.

Trondheim, Norway was the final stop of the World Cup for me. Located in a college town on the sea, it was beautiful despite the coastal weather. I had heard that Norwegian waffles were worth the trip themselves, but now I am truly a believer!

Setting boots back in my home soil never felt so good. Although I still wasn’t home-home. Championates du Canadien et Championates du Nord Americain était á Valcartier, Quebec cette anée. After leaving everything I had on the course, I managed to take home the title of North American and Canadian Champion 2009.

So that takes me full circle around the globe, and back to the psychadelic spandex of yesterday’s hot doggin’. I am pleased with the improvements from the year, and I know I can be ready to do tougher training in this pre-Olympic year.

To all my fellow hot dogger’s out there, have a great spring, and I look forward to keeping you up-to-the-minute informed on my home stretch to 2010!

Thanks for your support! Without you, my dreams would not be possible!

Yours, living in color,

Megan

Greetings from South Korea!

Friday,February 13th, 2009

What in the name of biathlon am I doing so far from a euro-sport channel, you ask? It may come as a surprise to you then, devoted biathlon fan, that World Championships are starting here tomorrow!

It has been a week or so since I stepped onto the other side of the globe, and embraced chopsticks with my fumbling Canadian fingers. But precision eating instruments may prove to be the least of our worries here.

Let me explain...

Currently the team and I are kickin’ back at Yong Pyong, a bustling ski and golf resort just outside of Pyeongchang. Korean tourists dressed to the nines in neon, snowboard late into the wee hours, while music blares across the entire ski area. Day to day Korean life had been fun. Meal times and grocery stores especially, make me smile. Dried fish, and other ocean fauna abound. Our hotel, the Greenpia, majestically overlooks the entire resort. Buses escort us to the biathlon stadium, mere minutes away.

The entire venue is brand spankin’ new: biathlon range, cross country ski trails, spectator stands, media and wax buildings, and half a dozen towering ski jumps. All of these make their home on an expansive golf course. Hit the trails in winter, the links in summer. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Here’s the catch: what do we do with this infrastructure if there is no snow?

Which brings me to Friday the 13th in South Korea. To say it rained cats and dogs would not do THIS tropical storm justice. It blew, it poured, and it was sixteen shameful degrees above zero. The race course up until this point had been sketchy, but solid; haggard but hopeful. Yet with one day to go before the competitions get rolling, Hurricane Bad-Timing rears it’s ugly rain-soaked head.

We are awaiting the final decision tomorrow morning; to race or not to race. The tireless organizing committee is working around the clock. Trucks have been hauling snow to the venue all afternoon, fighting the rising tide of mud and water.

Here is hoping that tomorrow is a great day.

Megan

Here is hoping that tomorrow is a great day.

Biathlon althletes promote calendar in Calgary!

October 9th, 2008 Dear Sponsors, Friends and Fans,

The mighty Dachstein glacier- keeper of snow in September and seven dollar cappuccinos, towers above me. Aaaah, Austria; land of lowing cattle and Nordic walkers, Kaisershmarrn and knodel.

Here I am in Ramsau for my favorite camp of the year. Every year as the leaves fall, our doctors prescribe altitude training. So, after our morning oats, up the gondola we go, packed in like Austrian cattle with Salomon hooves. Once atop the mountain, we ski for up to three hours, only stopping for lactate analysis or some form of chocolate. Then, once again we are herded into the gondola, and sent back to the farm.

Keeping tabs on our recovering bodies is critical when training sky high. Each morning our heart rate variability tests are uploaded and sent into cyberspace to be analyzed, scrutinized and authorized by our highly effective team at the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary. Essentially, the days training depends on how my ticker responded to the previous day. This method is sehr gut in keeping me in ship shape, so I know when to lay on the intensity, and when to lie on my bed.

Speaking of staying healthy, another point of interest is the sheer volume of food we go through with seven athletes in the house. For those of you who have never seen a team in action, it is indeed a difficult concept to grasp. Daily, the cupboards are stocked and restocked with pasta, yogurt, oatmeal, and a glorious substitute for any bread topping- Ovalmaltine. (For those who say ‘I thought you were healthy’, Ovalmaltine happens to be chock full of vitamins and minerals essential to every biathlete.) Eating is our most frequent habit each day, perhaps more aptly described as grazing, foraging, or after a particularly intense workout; pillaging.

With one more week to go in our camp, my legs are getting heavier, but I’m enjoying every minute. Many other teams are doing the same camp at this time of year, so I have a chance to catch up with my biathlon friends from Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany, and Italy. This also gets the fire burning in my belly for the first World Cups of the year in December.

To everyone back home, thanks for your support, and I know you all have your skis waiting eagerly by the door for the first snowfall!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Megan

August 12, 2008

Dear Sponsors, Friends and Fans,

It’s Olympic time, and a refreshing reminder of what I’m aiming for. You may have seen a snapshot of me on CBC lately (special thanks to Petro-Canada), but here is a little more in depth look at my training year recapped just for you. Enjoy.

With hardly enough time since my last race for the eau de biathlon to dissipate from my Salomon boots, I was back on snow. Callaghan Valley, biathlon venue for the 2010 Olympics, played host to our first National Team training camp in May. The air was thick with our mental imagery, as we anticipated the sights and sounds of 2010. Thanks to a load of snow this winter and an open venue, I am getting to know the Olympic course like the back of my glove.

A week later, like an athlete after a free meal, I took off to Mt. Washington in further search of snow. Though the trail was only 1.5km long, we had perfect snow at low altitude in mid June. (1.5km loop + 3 hour workout = ample time to work on ski technique and lip syncing). With a spectacular ocean backdrop, sea kayaking, biking, and great accommodation, Mt. Washington scored an A+ for a camp setting in my books.

July had a few new tricks up its sleeve for my talented team. Three early mornings a week we’d zip up to Highwood Pass (altitude 2206 m) for a long rollerski. To our amazement, we saw half a dozen grizzly bears over two weeks at Highwood. We got into quite the routine...ski up; see a bear, ski back down, repeat. Some days it took us much longer to get to the top with these heart-racing interruptions.

The second part of the week involved a fantastic little device called a rollerski treadmill. (Insert daunting music here). In order to get the most gains from our altitude work, we would do high intensity training the following day. And in order for the physiologists to poke our fingers for blood as much as they’d like, we were at the Calgary Olympic Oval on a ski treadmill. Picture your run-of-the-mill running treadmill, but 10 times larger. Now picture a harness attached to the roof. This harness enables a fallen skier to hang mission impossible style over the speeding treadmill. Now that’s fun! (We all got to practice it but no one actually fell). Our scientists hovered over the controls for speed and gradient. Our coach gave constant technique analysis. And tourists peered through the surrounding cage like we were animals. Oh the life of an athlete.

So here we are, flying into August at warp speed. A mini cycling camp in Revelstoke started the month off right, and now my teammates and I are stoked for the approaching fall. This spring we became the National Women’s team and split off into gender divided training groups. We have been having a great time, and challenge each other on a daily basis. It’s with these friends that I found myself dancing on the stage at the Canmore folk music festival, or freezing our legs in the Bow River after a hard days training.

Together we are spearheading a project to fund our sport psychology, massage, and training camps. It’s these teammates that I am trusting, challenging, and bonding with that will bring each of us to the next level. And closer to that Olympic dream.

the megan report | february 16th 2008

Wow was I nervous! There is something about head to head races that set my race butterflies into frantic flight. Completely confident about my double pole power and my ready race legs, it was the fact that I’d never started a mass start that was toying with my mind. Luckily for me, getting this worked up before a race usually means I’m on my game. I’m sharp. I’m ready to go, and go fast.

Welcome to the mixed relay. My task was to ski 3 x 2 km laps with three extra rounds per shooting bout. Composed of two women and two men, I was given the joy of starting. With every cell poised for blast off, waiting for the gun, you could feel the intensity in the air. ‘Ready?’ Says the starter.

FALSE START. The Russian had jumped the gun. Nothing like a false start to take the edge off!

BANG!

‘Keep your head up. Fight. Relax. There’s an opening- GO.’

Without incident, I followed the train around a fast 2 km loop and back into the stadium. That first lap was the highlight of the day. Holy adrenaline rush! Not to mention a boost of confidence that even the best in the world are within reach.

The rest of the race was smooth, despite ice-block hands in the range. I shot 8/10 and used 4 of my 6 spare rounds to make those two rogue targets fall down. Not a bad day. The best part was that I conquered my range entry, and man, did I have FUN!

Keep updated for the individual today. It is a howler out there today, and we compete under the big lights at night to boot. Guaranteed to be a nail-biter!

Thanks for your support!

the megan report

February 12th, 2008

Hello dear sponsors, friends and fans.

This update is coming at you straight out of the Biathlon World

Champs in Ostersund, Sweden.Toeing the start line of my first World Championships race, I can honestly say that I wasn’t the least bit fazed.

‘I am the tiger. I am ready to fight.’

After my rookie season on the World cup, I have settled into the racing routine. What? There were 20,000 fans cheering? TV cameras on the range? No big deal! Though watching said fans do the wave at the start of a biathlon race is a far cry from my solo training grounds in Falcon Lake, biathlon is biathlon.

As I cruised around the 2.5km loop, I was loving the course. It’s rollercoaster profile and technical downhills give me an advantage. ‘I’m on my feet, on my feet. Stay low. Ride the wave.’

Coming into prone, I started to get nervous. My prone has been shaky since New Years, and my confidence was not completely topped up yet. So I embarked on my prone shots a little slower than usual, but came away triumphantly with 5 hits. Bypassing the penalty loop is DEFINITELY worth those extra precious seconds.

Which I learned in standing.

Had I access to a magic lamp mid-race, I would redo my range entry into standing. What happened can be called a brain fart, a memory lapse or a blond moment (though with a recent change in hair color, the last one is unlikely), I simply lost focus. When I left the range, I had missed three targets and didn’t know why. (Don’t worry though; I had 450 meters of penalty loop to think it over!)

When I motored across the finish line, the first thing I thought was, Ok, I’ve had better races, so ‘What did I learn?’ Range entry, range entry, range entry! and ‘What did I do well?’ My prone is back! Woohoo!

Live and learn. On to race number two, the mixed relay, where I get to be in the mass start. What a blast!

Thanks to all those that are watching and cheering from across the pond, your support is very motivating!

Megan

click on Shooting for the Stars to read megan's

Free Press write up January 10th, 2008

the megan report | november 27, 2007

Last Friday morning, my teammates and I departed for Finland. Thirty hours, 5 airports, and many airplane breakfasts later, we arrived safe and sound at Hotel Julie. Having been here before, it is not unfamiliar, though a very different world. The 9 hour time change takes some getting used too, and it is dark by 3pm.

On Thursday at 11:30 I will race my first World Cup individual. Already since I arrived, I seem to have a flock of ever-present butterflies travelling with me everywhere I go. Two days before my start things are only picking up in intensity. There are skis to be tested (luckily they are all rockets to start off with- thanks to Salomon), courses to ski, equipment to be checked.

I am lucky enough to be traveling with a super team. My coach and wax techs are great, and we have the added bonus of a massage therapist who is also a yoga instructor. Thanks to Tracy, daily hotel-hallway yoga with the British and Czech teams is becoming the norm!

My first WC race will be a big event-tv cameras and fans are not the norm in Canmore, but it all comes down to having a solid training base under my belt and belief in myself when I stand on the start line. Having these two items with me, gives me the confidence to take on the best in the world, and to learn from them as my World Cup career begins.

Thanks to all my sponsors and to my friends and fans for their support!