SAC Mathew Bailey - Training Diary 30 November 2011

Danny & Luke classic skiing

We woke up at the usual time of 6.40am got dressed and went outside to meet up with the Boss and the Coach at 7.00am ready for morning mobility.  We all met and set off on the morning jog and stretch to loosen up the muscles for the days training.  It wasn’t as cold today, it has been about 2 degrees which is warm compared to the -4 and -5 we were getting used to.  After the jog and balance session, we all headed down into the basement for the core session.  Carl was taking it this morning and took us through it all explaining the different exercises we were doing.  It turned out to be a hard little session but it is all good in the long run.  After breakfast and the morning routine we all jumped into the wagon and set off at 9.00am down to the stadium for a morning of classic skiing.  When we got down there and coach choose the right wax we all corked into our skis, this morning the wax was for 0 degrees so we all cracked on and got our ski’s prepped.  When we got out on the snow coach told us the loops of the track he wanted us to do and set us off.  We were working specifically on double pole kick on the flat side of the track and mainly two phase on the hilly half.  Towards the end of the session we all met up and went round together. After an hour and a half of this we went back to the apartments for lunch and a rest before skating and shooting combination training in the afternoon.  At 2.30pm we set off to the stadium and set up going straight into zeroing our rifles.  After this coach set us off doing one shot drills skating around the back of the range in between each shot.  We alternated between prone and standing working on our positions and getting used to shooting with skis on, which is a different feeling especially in the standing.  We were sharing a few lanes of range with one of the army teams.  After we had finished this we went into doing loops of the track coming into the range and full 5 shot drills. It was all fun training working on our skating technique and coming into shoot with a pulse as well.  At 5.00pm we promptly set off back to the apartments to watch the first biathlon world cup race of the season.