https://picasaweb.google.com/103373621226083889961/Sharkfest2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIijt9nwnp34hAE&feat=directlink

On a side note RMR would like to thank all the organizers and Volunteers who came out to help make Sharkfest another great success !!! See you all again next year

Course distances and maps for saturdays distance race are below…

Loop distances and colours

Green and Orange loop maps

Red and Blue loop maps

Yellow and Pink loop maps

Mass Start Stadium map 

Course distances and maps for sundays sprint race are below…

 425 m and 1.1 km sprint  stadium map

 Atom/PW sprint stadium map 

 Juvenile sprint stadium map

Sprint loop distances and colours 

Sprint loop maps

Over the past two weeks, I have had the honour and privilege to race for Canada at the IBU Cups #6 & #7 in Canmore, Alberta. To be among such high calibre athletes was really exciting, inspiring, and such a rewarding experience. This is the first time that the IBU Cup has been hosted outside of Europe. Biathletes from 13 nations participated in the event, including the powerhouses of biathlon: Germany, Norway and Russia.

It was super awesome to be part of such a great team and to see Canada perform so well!! We had a hat trick of gold medals by Nathan Smith, a bronze for Yolaine Oddou and a plethora of Canadians in the top 10 and personal bests all round. I would also like to congratulate the RMR athletes who gave it their all in the IBU races! Our coaching staff and waxing team was unbelievably awesome and so supportive – THANK YOU!!!

For me, the series of 4 races started off slowly, however, I learned so much from my first international biathlon racing experience. I went from missing 8 shots out of 10 and placing 37th (and last) in the first 7.5km Sprint race – to hitting 10 out of 10 and moving up six places in the next Sprint race the following day. It was something that my coaches called: “the definition of a turn-around.”

I went on to have my personal best shooting and result in the 15km Individual race and improved my Sprint ranking in the last race. Training really does pay off!!

It was great to ski on my home course and have so many friends and teammates there to cheer me on. I knew that my family was watching me back home in Ontario on the internet, and it helps to know that I have so much support. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

I also want to thank everyone in RMR for being there – not just at these races, but all year round. From the super fun training camps to those grueling SSS workouts and every -20 degree Celsius shooting session in between, I’m proud to be part of such a great team!!! GO RMR GO!!!

Check it out !!!

http://fasterskier.com/2011/12/youth-olympic-games-presents-stuart-harden/

fasterskier.com/2011/10/youth-olympic-games-presents-danielle-vrielink/

http://fasterskier.com/2011/12/youth-olympic-games-presents-maya-macisaac-jones/ 

Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of helping coach the Junior Olympians, an awesome group of young athletes between 10 and 14 years old. So far, their activities have ranged from mountain biking at COP, speed skating at the oval, running at Glenmore Park, climbing and biathlon. Today, we we’re at the Nordic Center teaching them how to shoot rifles, which was a tonne of fun.  I would like to quickly thank Airat and the Alberta Biathlon Club for letting us use their 0.22 rifles which allowed each kid to have their own gun. After explaining how the rifles work and the safety rules on the range, it was the kids’ turn to show us what they could do! It was amazing to see first time shooters hitting 4/5 and 5/5. Once they figured out the shooting, which didn’t take very long, it was on to games. Karen and I decided that we should probably start with something simple, so we decided on 3 laps around the fence, 2 prone shootings and a penalty of 5 burpies per miss. The race was off and it was great to see all of them sprinting around the fence, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many targets they were all going to hit at such a high heart rate. We were all blown away when they left the range after all hitting 4/5 and 5/5. After that race, everyone was pretty tired, so we decided to play a shooting game called kill Charlie, which is when you have to hit all of your targets except for the middle one and then, if you haven’t missed, you can try to hit the middle target of the person next to you. After one round Colten had eliminated his brother to claim a spot in the finals against Max, who had eliminated Liam. Once the finals were complete, the kids were ready for one final race. We decided to make this last one count, so we settled on a course with obstacles, climbing and running through tunnels. Of course, we had to come up with a creative penalty so if they missed one, they had to do “The Chicken Dance”, if they missed two, they had to do the “Macarena,” if they missed three, they had to do “I’m a Little Teapot.” With their fear of singing and dancing, the boys made sure not to miss more than 1 on all of their shootings, which is quite impressive given the challenging course we set out for them. We finished off the practice with one final game of kill Charlie, and by then, most of the kids were pretty tired as two out of three mistakenly eliminated their self during the game by hitting their own middle target! All in all, it was a great day out in Canmore and after seeing how talented this young group of athletes are, I can’t wait to see them race during the winter!

Pictures Here!!!

Now that we have the program up and running with a core of enthusiastic kids, an activity packed agenda and engaged coaching, we would encourage anyone who is between the ages of 10 and 14, that may be interested in these sports (or their parents just want to get them off the game boy) to try out a practice.  We are meeting Mondays, Wednesdays in Calgary and Saturdays in Canmore.  If you would like more information regarding this program you can contact Luke McGurk at lukemcgurk@hotmail.com

aka I LOVE JASPER!!!

Our fall Jasper camp was everything you could have dreamed for in a volume camp… and more.  I have always loved Jasper National Park, and this camp gave me even more reasons to love it.  From magnificent mountain roads to exploring the trails around town, Jasper has so much to offer that you would need much more than a week to experience it all.

The emphasis of our camp was rollerskiing, with a specific focus on one-skate and uphill techniques.  Thankfully, as it was the shoulder season, there was not a lot of traffic on the roads.  Most of the traffic we did encounter were very supportive, albeit curious, and we were made to feel like celebrities due to the amount of amateur video that was being shot out of passenger windows.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see the popularity of rollerskiing increase worldwide, or at least a few more uploads of “guess what I saw these weird people doing on my holiday in Jasper” on YouTube.

Day One found us rollerskiing along the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Bow Summit (approximately 45km), as we made our way towards Jasper.  That rollerski was, in a word, amazing!  We had beautiful blue bird skies, wonderful mountain vistas, really warm temperatures, and amazing support along the way.  The hardest thing for me was to watch where I was going, as the scenery is just gorgeous along that highway.

On Day Two, we rollerskied right from our door up to the Marmot Basin downhill resort.

As the rain turned to snow partway up the mountain, I wondered why I hadn’t brought my rock skis…  A core strength session in the afternoon was enjoyed by all, including hotel guests and locals that wondered what in the world we were doing.

Day Three found us doing intensity on the road to Edith Cavell.  This was a super fun road, full of switchbacks and beautiful new pavement.  Luckily most of us were wearing fluorescent clothing, as the fog had really socked in on us.

The next day, the biathletes headed to Hinton for some easy combo.  While driving up to the site, we had the feeling that we were driving up into a cloud.  This feeling was confirmed when we were unable to see anything through the scope, and only knew that Luke was downrange because we could hear him stapling up the paper targets.  That was an interesting shooting day, to say the least.  It was great practice for those races that you end up shooting in extreme weather and reminds me why I always close my snow covers.

In the afternoon we rollerskied on Highway 93 heading south, and ran back to town starting at the Valley of the Five Lakes.  If I haven’t already said it, Jasper is so beautiful!  This trail made its way around and beside, you guessed it, five lakes and then went along beside the Athabasca River before crossing it and leading us back into the townsite.

On the fifth day, we did an epic rollerski from Jasper to Mailgne Lake (approximately 44km).  Besides one sketchy downhill, the uphill rolling terrain was perfect.  Along the ski, we were able to see the odd rocky mountain sheep, the mysterious disappearing Medicine Lake, and John blowing bubbles out his truck window as encouragement to make it those last few kilometres.  It really did help, John.  Thank you!

The next day was a bit of an easier “challenge-by-choice” day that found the biathletes heading to Hinton in the morning for some easy combo, with much better visibility this time.  I went for a nice run on the trails back in Jasper in the afternoon, during which I was struck with the revelation that I really would love to live in Jasper someday!

On our seventh day, there was an option to run or mountain bike around the Saturday Night Lake Loop.  As the Edmonton Oilers had evidently rented out all of the mountain bikes in town (they were also in Jasper for a training camp), and because I love running now (thanks to Maggie), I decided to run the trail.  Highlights from our run included checking out the amazing terrain and really cool forests, seeing a huge bull and cow moose come out of the bushes and then run along the same trail we were on, and almost beating a group of the mountain bikers around the 30km loop.  Highlights from the mountain biking crews included seeing Michael and Beau take flying leaps with their bicycles off bridges into the beautifully muddy puddles that were underneath them.

Our final day found us rollerskiing up Bow Summit (some of us repeatedly) from the other direction, as we headed south towards Lake Louise.  We were rewarded with a nice hot lunch at Laggans and then it was time to head back home.

Undoubtedly, one of the highlights of our camp was dinner time.  Every day, Marilyn and Les Poffenroth devoted themselves to cooking a wonderful multi-course meal for all of the athletes, coaches and parents.  This was amazing, and I can’t thank Marilyn and Les enough for doing this.  It was great to share a meal with the whole team every night, and it made training and recovering that much easier.  Not to mention how delicious every meal was – from fresh scones to baked salmon to the build-your-own-Sundae bar, the food was as tasty as it was sustaining on those long workouts.

Our accommodation at the Best Western Jasper Inn and Suites couldn’t have been more perfect.  Our family style lodgings had immediate access to town and the trails, a great pool and hottub, and to make things complete, a one-antlered elk in the parking lot.

I would like to say a great big THANK YOU to everyone who made this camp possible: to John and Luke for putting in so much time and effort in coaching us, to Marilyn and Les for providing us with those amazing dinners, to Lori, Sherri, Hank and Jennifer to shuttling us and keeping us safe on the roads, and to Jo for lending us her family van.

Jasper Camp Pictures

And if you haven’t already picked up on this, I LOVE JASPER!!!

Karen Messenger

Each morning we were greeted by sunshine and great skiing. Even when the cat groomer broke Winsport swooped in, literally (with a helicopter), and brought up a snowmobile to help groom. Everyone got lots accomplished with instant technique feedback from coaches and video analysis in the afternoons. Nearly every day we met at the far end of the ski loop and did some organized sprints against each other. In the afternoons we went swimming in glacial creeks, watched movies, played board games and disk golf. Unless, of course, all the training got the best of you and you needed a massive nap. By the end of the week I was feeling very lucky to be part of such a unique team. On the last couple days we had the pleasure of experiencing Les Parson’s recorder, harmonica and singing talent as a morning wake up. The Pofenroths even went to the effort of pointing out all the things they admired in their teammates while giving us candy!

As the camp came to a close we were met with a quiet satisfaction of a good training week. Almost everyone finished close to 25 hours of training. As a whole we became much better prepared for the quickly approaching race season. A special thanks to the Winsport staff, Eric, Evan and Mike Norton down in Canmore. Thanks so much to the coaches too, John, Luke, Les and Dan the Man! I also must applaud Beau Thompson. He was able to accurately diagnose the mechanical failure of the snow cat. It’s nice to know our team has so much skill outside of the ski world.

All the best,

Kurtis Wenzel