Looking out my window, which has a good view of the Green Mountains of Vermont, it seems like spring is here and the snow is gone. Further examination of the mountaintops reveals white speckled pines and spruces, but at the lower elevations, snow is becoming scarcer and scarcer. Though winter may remain in the mountains, spring is certainly on its way.

On Wednesday, I drove three hours west across Lake Champlain to Lake Placid, New York, where one of the three U.S. Olympic Training Centers is located. My goal was to start the new season on good footing, primarily through some testing. Upon my return to Vermont, though, it seems to me that the short two-day trip helped me put sport into perspective.

During a short run on Wednesday evening as small amounts of snow fell from the sky, I began to think about last season and how I would improve upon what I learned from that evaluation for next season and the more distant seasons to come.

First and foremost, I decided that Vermont was no longer the best place for me to live if my goals in sport were high. Certainly Vermont is a good location for those athletes seeking an equal balance between school and biathlon, but one must realize that having two goals, one in higher education and the other in elite sport, will inevitably lead to only modest gains in both realms. In classes, I only demand the best of myself and aim for the highest grades. Similarly, I train in order to become the best in the world of biathlon. I realized that I could do both simultaneously.

Thus, my thoughts turned to where in the world I would find the environment most conducive to biathlon. The past two summers I have resided in Fort Kent, Maine, which successfully hosted its first World Cup two weeks ago. Also on my list was the venue for the 2002 Olympic Games at Soldier Hollow, Utah. Other ideas came up of different venues in the United States and Canada, but none of them could provide either the support or environment that could are needed to turn me into the best.

If I find the perfect place for biathlon, then what am I going to do there? Naturally, I had to evaluate my training over the past few seasons for successes and failures, and other lessons learned that fit into neither category. While I won't share my evaluation here, I can write that my training plan for next season will be an amalgamation of the strengths that I have recognized in my training over the past six seasons in addition to things that I learned in speaking to other athletes at the international level.

Before I could move into a new training strategy, I first had to find out my current fitness level. In Lake Placid yesterday I did a VO2-max and lactate profile test running on a treadmill. My drop in VO2-max did not particularly surprise me because I have taken a lot of time off in the past six weeks, and VO2-max is a variable that indeed parallels training levels. On the other hand, I was completely astonished to see how high my lactate and anaerobic thresholds were. They eclipsed the levels I thought that I had attained even during the season!

Over the next two weeks, I will be developing my preliminary two-year training plan and deciding upon where my residence will be for the time leading up to the 2006 Olympic Games in Torino. There will also be a great deal of backcountry skiing since winter is not exactly over yet. In fact, it snowed a few inches last night in the mountains!

Peace,
Brian