Diesel engine
That’s kind of what the start of a new season is like. Imagine a cold winter morning, you’ve got to go out to pick up some milk and bam the car won’t start. To cold. Well, I’m a little like that.
The first part of a new ski season, in winter sports, is finding out who your team/training squad is going to be. It’s a very stressful part of the year because when you’ve done a good year of racing but not a perfect year you are never very confident, and with the rising cost of living and the French Ski Federation (FFS) going through a small financial crisis you start getting quite worried about if you’ll make it onto the team or not. Everyone dreams of being part of their national squad, and whereas in some sports where the best teams are the private ones, let’s take cycling as an example (everyone would like to be part of a grand tour team or a team who will let them compete on the world cup circuit), well in biathlon being part of the national federation is the goal.
The “Fédé” as we call it, is where you get the best trainers, the best training facilities and it also proves you are part of the best in your country. During our last season, the French team was composed of a Men’s Elite and Women’s Elite squad (approx 13 athletes), as well as a mixte B squad, I was part of that, and if I count correctly there were 17 of us. It’s a big team but with a staff of two shooting trainers and two prep trainers, it works well. As you can see there is no junior team… And that’s the big problem we have at the moment in France, not enough budget for the juniors. And when we were all hoping this next year would see the comeback of a junior team this happens:
I’ve unofficially made the cut
When you read an article like the one linked above you get scared. What is going wrong in our federation? Junior teams are an essential part of the future development of the next generation of athletes. All the Elite athletes today have made it this far because when they were younger, they were part of the junior teams, and they had access to great facilities, training and expertise. It’s an incredibly difficult situation to be in and just makes planning everything else even more sketchy.
Happily for me, in early May I got a phone call from my shooting trainer Claire to tell me I made the cut and will be part of the Men’s B squad for the upcoming season. When you receive that call you are extremely happy, you know that you are in good hands and that you’ll have access to the best preparation before the next winter. The big change this year is the fact the B group is no longer mixed, we have a men’s squad and a ladies’ squad. I also have a brand-new prep trainer Rachel.
So now we’ve got all the story parts out of the way: what have I been doing for the past two weeks? Euh the short answer is training, duh, but it does get a little more interesting than that. See, I’ve just had all of April off to rest, so my body is kind of weak at the moment, that means I have to get back into training slowly without taking too big of a step or I’ll burn out too fast/injure myself.
Two slow slow weeks
This is where the diesel engine comes in, it takes me some time to get ready but ounces everything is rolling, ohh boy there is no stopping me at all 🤪. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing some cycling, some running and a lot of core strengthening but all very slowly and for not very long. No more than 20mins for the core sessions and 1h for the running sessions, the only times I’ve been allowed to go over 2h are when cycling because it’s not very traumatic to the body and it’s relatively easy (be sure to check me out on strava you can see everything I’m up to).
And it’s a good thing I haven’t been going very far because after the only two 1h runs I’ve accomplished, I struggled to walk for the next few days due to cramps and very sore legs (courbature in French). I also went climbing once and put both my arms out completely until they recovered. But 25 hours of training later I’ve made it out of the first two weeks.
A new season also means lots of new gear, well in theory anyway, that’s what we all hope for. During the month of April I’ve been looking out for a new bike to replace the cyclocross Boardman I’ve been using, a new helmet to replace the one with a crack in it (kind of a safety liability) and some new road running shoes. I hesitated a long time between an Abus Powderdome and a Poc Ventral Mips for the helmet and as you can see below I decided the Poc would be the better option, especially whilst roller skiing. However, on the shoe side, it’s been more of a struggle. I can’t choose between a carbon-plated shoe or a none carbon plated running shoe. If any of you have some suggestions be sure to let me know as I’m desperately in need of a new pair before the summer.
You may have realised I haven’t spoken about the bike yet… Well, maybe in another couple of weeks, I’ll have an update on that one. But if you’re feeling impatient be sure to add me on the socials @jacques_jeff and you most definitely find an update there.