Note: This was as of last week... I leave this evening.

I hope this message finds you all well, with plenty of snow, if skiing is your thing. I’m in Vermont now. “Vermont,” you might be wondering. Yes, Vermont. I am here preparing for next season so that when I come out of Basic Training in late April, I’ll be set to start training right away. “Whoa, Basic Training?” Yes, Basic Training. For the Army National Guard. The National Guard has a biathlon program in which athletes are paid to train and race.

After returning home from the Olympics last year, I realized that I had to make a decision: would I be satisfied with having become an Olympian, and move onto something else in my life, or would I keep going after the highest level and continue training? While I was happy to have been on the Olympic Team, I didn’t feel like I had done everything in biathlon that I could. There is still more to do.

There are three options to being a biathlete in the U.S. One, you’re rich and don’t need to worry about money. Maybe you’re not, but your parents are. Two, you find sponsors to pay for the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to live, train, and travel. Or, three, you join the National Guard and become part of the biathlon program.

My parents were obviously not so keen on the idea of the military. After I got all of the information, they suggested that I wait a year. In the interim, I should do my best to raise money from sponsors. If after a year, I still wanted to be a biathlete and hadn’t been able to raise $18,000-25,000 a year, then I could re-visit the decision.

In December, not quite a year, but close enough, I was riding on a bus from the World Cup in Hochfilzen to Munich to fly home. The races hadn’t gone as well as I had hoped. I was shooting fairly well, but not skiing fast at all. I wondered why I was doing biathlon at all. And so I thought about that for a bit. And realized that I enjoy biathlon because I love to train and I love to race. I love pushing myself every day. I love hitting targets. I love the feeling of gliding over snow and the sound of my heart and lungs reaching their limits. Everyone has his or her passion; biathlon is mine.

I thought about why I don’t like biathlon… to see if the passion I have for the sport outweighs the more negative aspects of it. I don’t like how it keeps me away from my family and friends for months and months at a time. I don’t like the people around me sometimes. I don’t like being financially insecure. While it is nice in many ways to have few possessions and I am grateful for the people who have supported me by welcoming me into their homes, it is not a lifestyle that will be very practical at age 30. At some point, we all have to grow up.

I found out more information about the National Guard while I was in Utah for Christmas and the New Year. Because military training is such a lengthy ordeal – nine weeks for Basic Training and at least eight additional weeks for job training – I knew that I would probably have to start in February if I wanted to be back in time to start “real” training in May.

In January, I went back to Europe for the European Cup. At the same time that I was racing, I was trying to get details worked out, and finally, deliberating over whether it was absolutely the right decision… to join the National Guard. Some of the races were used to determine the World Championship Team. While usually “trials” are a nerves-on-end type of week, I didn’t sleep four nights in a row, not because of race nerves, but because my mind was “deliberating” over this decision non-stop. I had to decide during the races because I would need to change my return flight home, notify the recruiters so they could start the enlistment process, and so on.

Finally, I decided to do it. That night I finally was able to sleep. The next day, in the relay race, I had the best race of my season. While I was physically drained from so little sleep that week, I pushed hard. In the shooting range, for the first time ever in my career, I hit all of my targets in a race – with no extra rounds. That’s a big deal. A very nice race to end the season with… and I made the World Championship Team, but decided to decline the nomination.

At 5 am the next morning, I drove through the Italian Alps, over ice-covered roads going 10 mph so that I would slide off the road, to Munich and flew to Minnesota. The next day, I went to something called MEPS, which is where they test, poke, and prod you for two days to determine if you are qualified to join the military. The people I met there were, for lack of a better word, interesting… certainly people I would not have otherwise met if I had not gone down this route. Not bad, just different from people I’m used to. At the end, you are sworn in and you sign your contract. There were some major problems with my contract, but ones that I have since been able to fix.

I flew to Vermont the next day to get everything ready for next season. When I arrived, my car wouldn’t start. I replaced the battery. Still nothing. We had it jumped. Nothing. We had it towed into a heated garage. Nope. The mechanics replaced the starter. Nope. Then they took the belt off the alternator… ahh, like magic, it started! But the alternator needed replacement. When the mechanic took it out, it cracked in half and brown rust spilled out. So the car was fine.

Or, so I thought. On the way home, there was this awful smell. Just horrendous. I had to turn the heat off completely and drive with the windows open. Then it was decent. I looked into the ducts and saw dead mice. I tried to access the parts, but cars are so complicated these days that it is impossible to do most any work yourself. So I took it back to the mechanic the next day. He called me and said that the entire dash had to be removed – a five-hour job – and that all of the ductwork likely had to be replaced – another three hours. He also said it would be three days until it was done. When I went to pick it up, the mechanic overheard me say that I was there for the Ford Explorer, and he turned around and said that the entire ventilation system was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of maggots.

So I drove up to Fort Kent, Maine, on the weekend to get some of the things I wasn’t able to fit into my car last spring when I moved back here to Vermont. That’s seven hours each direction. On the way up, there were three snow squalls through which I could barely see the road. Yesterday, the headwind was so strong – about 30 mph plus gusts - that I struggled to keep my car in one lane and the engine was running at 500 rpm above normal just to provide forward torque.

Tomorrow, I fly to Minnesota for the weekend and then, on Monday, I will go from there to Basic Training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma for nine to ten weeks. In the U.S., everyone in the Army and National Guard goes through the same Basic Training, albeit at different bases around the country. There’s no special “athlete” military training, like in Norway.

The physical training is not exceptionally difficult. The standards are something like 15 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, and a mile (1.6 km) in 8 minutes 30 seconds. I’ll be yelled at for everything, whether done right or wrong. I’ll obey orders. I’ll march in strange and peculiar manners. I’ll learn how to shoot weapons and how to engage in hand-to-hand combat. I’ll get only seven hours of sleep, often much less. I’ll have my head shaved. I’ll learn the military manner of doing things. Surprisingly, I’m looking forward to it. Of course, I’d rather be at World Championships… However, these nine weeks will be very different from anything I’ve done before and, once I’m finished, I will be paid to do what I love.

And if that doesn’t seem genuine – at least I’ll have ample material to write about.

I won’t be allowed to access my e-mail, update my website, make phone calls, or have visitors while I am at Basic Training.

Have a great rest of the winter and a good start to spring!

Peace,