A friend in my cycling club organized a biathlon race today. He and another friend I ride with both race biathlon in the winter and smaller sports like to put on events like this to try and attract members. I know I did a few similar events when I used to speed skate. I've always wanted to try biathlon so, even though I hadn't been on my skate skis in a few years and my only experience shooting a gun was hunting juice boxes with a shotgun up north, I was keen to enter. Despite the cold and the mid-March blizzard, it was fun to give biathlon a try.
After some gun safety, a few practice shots, and an explanation of the rules of biathlon, I was in the second heat of 5 km races using the .22 rifles. The biathlon club has one very nice left-handed rifle which I got to use since I'm left-eyed. It was nice to always have the same rifle but it meant a little delay when another left-handed person was in the range when I arrived. Luckily for me, I beat the other racer the first two times but her better shooting put her in front of me on the third time through the range. I really started to fade before the last time through the range so she had left by the time I showed up.
Each lap was about 1 km but the punishment for each missed shot was a lap around the 100 m penalty loop. I thought I hit a lot more targets than I got credit for and I ended up extending my race by 13 penalty loops. My GPS actually recorded that I did 6.5 km for my 5 km race.
I should have asked one of my friends to try my skis today as I've always been convinced they are slow. Maybe the skis are slow or else I have poor skate-skiing or waxing technique. The course was also a little slow due to all the new snow but it was the same for everyone and I wasn't catching or passing anyone.
In the end, I had a lot of fun and I'd be willing to get out and do it again. I think I'll need to figure out how to be a better skier before I become an actual member of the club and race all winter though.
