Summer Adventures: Training and Racing in Belgium
My international august training month continues after a trip to Italy. I was in eastern Belgium for a week to discover the great scenery and cycle paths the EU capital had to offer.
As part of the International Biathlon Unions’ development program and its bid to help some of the smaller nations rise to the top of the leaderboard during the winter, the organisation encourages big nations and smaller nations to train together during the summer months. As part of Team France, we’d taken part in this a couple of years ago when we drove to Ruhpolding in Germany for a training camp with the Germans, the Belgians and us. After a successful week in Germany this time, we drove up to Elsenborn in Belgium for another training camp, only between the Belgium Biathlon Federation and the French Ski Federation.
Can you ski in Belgium ?!
Well as a matter of fact you can, Even though the highest point of the country is 694m and as a matter of fact has a major national road going right over it during the winter months Belgium can get a fair amount of snow. Now don’t expect to be able to go downhill skiing down some crazy slopes like you might find in the Porte du Soleil for example but the “hilly” terrain offers some great cross-country skiing tracks. But I haven’t got to the best bit yet. Why would we want to go up to Belgium for summer training? We need a biathlon range with some summer roller ski tracks. Well, just last year the small eastern town of Elsenborn built a brand-new biathlon training facility.
Welcome to Langlauf und Biathlonzentrum Ostbelgien, a year old 15 target biathlon range. It’s great to see some local communities invest in such infrastructure, a really nice range along with a brand new roller ski track. That’s the only real problem with this place, the roller ski track is incredibly short and not the most interesting to train on. I’d been told by some friends that it was short and had lots of turns in it but when I arrived it wasn’t at all what I’d envisioned in my head. Try and imagine an 800m long go-karting track with loads of ups and downs and turns all squeezed into a very short area. Well, that’s what this track was. At race speed, it took me only 2 mins to go around.
Now imagine having to train here all year round the amount of times you’d go around this track would make you absolutely insane. In the time I was there, about a week I managed to go around nearly 100 times according to the strava segment. Enough for me to be able to draw the track perfectly with my eyes closed if you asked me to. It was alright for a week though and it meant we’d be able to get loads of shooting practice in. The last 200m before the range are uphill and it’s a great practice to turn up to your target with your heart rate a little higher than usual and shoot. But we weren’t in Belgium only for a training camp, the people up there had another major plan for us.
The Belgian Summer Biathlon Championships
Yes! Finally my first roller ski races of the year and they couldn’t come any sooner. Even though it’s still very early in the preparation I’m always excited for some racing. It’s where you get to see what’s working and what’s not working correctly, and it gives me some new lines of work to focus on for the next month before the French champs in mid-September. Because of the small roller ski track, the race distances were very short. This is good early on in the preparation because it gives you the chance to focus on your shooting and not too much on skiing. We had a 5km sprint race on Saturday followed by a 5 km mass start on Sunday.
The first day was the sprint. We knew amongst the team that the skiing times would all approximately be the same and that any time difference would happen on the shooting range. So that made our focus on the range double because a penalty would put us out of podium contention really fast. As predicted that’s what happened, the people who shot well ended up in front. I didn’t do very well sadly, missed three on the prone and that left me with a lot to catch up on the standing. Another miss during the second shooting and I finished the race 55 seconds back to the leader who shot clean. My skiing form was great and I knew if I focused some more I could get something good done on Sunday.
On Sunday we went for a short roller ski in the morning to get our bodies moving and then I decided to pick up my gun for some dry firing exercises. I like doing this on the morning of races to get the juices flowing and helps me focus before zeroing starts. It was incredibly warm and the sun was pointing straight down at us. The girls raced first and a couple of them had some problems with the heat, this meant we’d have to be extremely careful whilst racing. I plunged my bib in a bucket of water before the start and made sure I drank loads before the race. I also made the choice of drinking during each lap of the race, I’d lose a couple of seconds each time but overall my race wouldn’t end up better than if I didn’t.
I started quite far back because of my time on the previous day but that didn’t change much. The race went off really fast and the first lap was spent mostly trying not to fall into the person in front of me. One miss on the first prone was alright to keep me in contention with the front of the race. 7th into the second prone I shot clean and was out in front along with the previous day’s winner. It was Florent Claude, a Belgian, and he’s massive so skiing behind him was great because I could recover on the downhills in his slipstream. We stayed together up until the final shooting, a last standing for the win. The first three shots went in, however, as Florent shot clean I missed and was forced to head around the penalty loop twice. I still managed to finish second and was very pleased with my overall race. A massive thank you to the Belgian federation for the invite and the perfect organisation throughout the weekend. I’d love to come back for more next year.
Thoughts on the racing and what’s next
These two races were great for us to set some new lines of work for the coming month because even though my asking was great and I managed to stand on the podium we don’t stop working, ever. On Sunday evening our trainers asked us to write down what worked and didn’t work for us throughout the weekend.
1/ qu’est ce qui vous a causé de la difficulté ?
Le maintien de la carabine (samedi)
Tir engagé (1 respiration - samedi)
Resté sur le même rythme (couché)
Échauffement sur le ski
2/ qu’est ce que vous avez bien réussi à réaliser ?
Le maintien avant le tir (dimanche)
Stratégie de course (jamais mené dans les descentes, boissons à chaque tour)
Tir engagé (1 respiration - dimanche)
Here you can see what I sent them later on Monday. It’s in French obviously and if you’re really interested I’ve linked Google Translate for you here. Writing this down helps you reflect on your weekend and figure out what needs to be worked on more and what doesn’t. For me there are two main things I’ll be focusing on, the first is getting my setup from the moment I get to the mat and the moment I’m ready to shoot as fast as possible. I’m really slow in what we call l’installation so it’s something I’m going to work on over the next few weeks, mainly by doing lots of dry firing work at home in the garden or up in my bedroom. The second is getting my shooting rhythm down to one breathing cycle between each shot. Ever since I’ve been doing biathlon it’s been two cycles and for next winter I’ve been working on getting it down to one. Lots of hard work but slowly and surely it’s coming along.
Did we do anything else in Belgium?
Of course, we did, Belgium is really well known to have kilometres upon kilometres of cycle tracks and we weren’t going to miss out on giving them a go. We had the opportunity to head out for a ride with the Belgium Biathlon president who knows the area by heart. He took us on some of the nicest roads and cycle tracks and we even managed to go up some of the climbs used during the Liège Baston Liège cycling race. A wonderful place to cycle and the local population are really appreciative of cyclists and leave loads of space when overtaking so it was a pleasure to ride there.
The one thing I was a little scared of was running. I’m not big into road running especially when I have to train for more than 2 hours and the terrain around where we were staying didn’t look great for trail running. But luckily the Belgian guys managed to find us a great running route around the Lac de Robertville. Loads of ups and downs with some nice views. I didn’t get bored which was what I was scared of before the run. It’s a good thing we only went on one long run though, I don’t know if they have more to offer ;)
The last amazing thing I have to talk about was our accommodation for the week. We stayed at Stefanshof - Henamo Resorts in a small town called Faymonville. The accommodation could sleep 28 people, which is perfect because that’s about how many we were. It has a swimming pool, sauna, and infrared sauna which is great for after a long training session to recover. The overall vibe of the building is incredible and for me, the highlight of the stay was the running sparkling water which came straight from the tap, no need for a SodaStream. A great week’s stay, and you can find more information about the accommodation here.
It’s time to head home now after an incredible month of training in August. The next few weeks leading up to the beginning of November are some of the most important weeks out of all my training. Ultimate focus is needed and everything that happens now will directly impact my performance this winter. The next big objective in the preparation is the first of two French race weekends. The SAMSE NATIONAL TOUR ÉTÉ in La Féclaz, mid September. Be sure to check out my social media channels for more information on those upcoming races.
I would like to finish off this newsletter by saying a massive thank you to the Belgian Biathlon Federation for our week of racing and training in your country. The races held ran perfectly and the staff and volunteers helping out were all wonderful. Can’t wait to come back in the years to come!