Fg Off Martyn Webster - Training Diary 6 January 2012

It was Friday the day of the 4 x 7.5km relay and the final race of the RACs.  The snow fall was relentless, and it was forecasted to get worse with 1m of snow over the next couple of days.  We had two teams, our first team with all the SACs then a mixed team with Cpl Carl Carrier (Coach) and I paired up with 1 RTR as the ‘RAF Honington Biathlon Club’ – Jointery at its best!  The range was due to open at 9.00am and the race start was at 10.00am, but the weather was being troublesome and caused the race to be delay to the afternoon.  As it was prize giving tonight and an early departure to France for the 1 (UK) Divisional Championships, we had to pack as much of the equipment in to the van now before the race.  Most other teams had a similar plan and it wasn’t long before the car park turned into its own mini competition, where the teams had to firstly locate their vehicles and then move the metre of snow off them in the quickest possible time.  Unfortunately we didn’t win, but the teams who thought that leaving 2ft of snow on their roofs found out why that isn’t a good idea as they ventured down the hill to load their equipment!!!  

At 12.00 the call had been made and the race was to start at 1.30pm but with no shooting and a reduced course to 6km, that was 3 x 2km loops.  We had an early lunch and prepped our skis and moved up to the start line, only to find out that the RTR element of our team was stuck somewhere between Munich and Hochfilzen - Jointery at its worse!  So coach and I were to go it alone taking two legs each.  Coach went first and came in around 21mins and then it was my turn.  All the fresh snow made the tracks fairly deep causing slow downhill and difficult uphill sections (that’s my excuse anyway), but I stayed on my feet for a change and came in and tagged coach for leg 3 in 27mins.  Coach managed to make good time again on lap 3 taking back some of the ground I lost on lap 2 with a time of just over 20mins, phenomenal considering he has a broken hand and is 4 years older than me, well it’s just annoying really!!!  The last lap and the snow had almost stopped falling, by this stage of the race the track had been flattened by all the skiers which made the course slightly easier.  With the speeder track and my confidence increasing with the amount of people I was overtaking, I was feeling happy that I would make it in a reasonably good time.  That confidence disappeared half way round my third and final loop, when at the top of one of the hills my right boot had just popped out of the ski unexpectedly, couldn’t quite work out why it happened, but it caused me a massive headache as I could not get my boot back into its binding.  One by one the skiers I had overtaken were passing me as I battled with the ski grrrrrrr!!!  I managed to get the ski on after minutes of swearing and carried on.  It didn’t feel right for the last 1 km of the course and I crossed the line in a frustrating 31mins.  I found the problem on closer inspection after the race, where my binding had pulled away from the ski and had split it – doh!

That evening was the prize giving and the team did fantastic coming away with lots of individual and team medals.  SAC Luke Tyler won gold for best guest novice and silver for best overall novice; SAC Mat Bailey won silver in the guest novice and bronze for best overall novice; Cpl Carl Carrier.  The team won gold for best guest team and silver for overall relay team; even I got a silver medal for the revised 4 x 6km relay race where the ‘RAF Honington Biathlon Club’ with a broken hand and ski came second in the mixed team prizes, and because we both did two legs, coach and I both got two medals each – result!!!