Half empty or half full?

So my races here in Fort Kent didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped. I was pretty bummed after it was over but I woke up this morning and decided to take a second look at my performance and find some good in what had me so disappointed just yesterday.

Yes, I made a stupid mistake on Saturday, skiing on the wrong pair of skis and thus getting disqualified because they were unmarked. But my performance, despite not being on the results sheet, was not all bad. My finish time was good for third, yet another podium finish to continue my streak this season. I skied fairly fast even though I had my softest skis instead of my stiffest as I had planned. I shot 0,2 (no misses in prone, two in standing) which might not seem all that amazing, but it was consistent with my best shooting races so far this year, an improvement over my shooting results from the last races in Jericho.

On Sunday I was tired and didn't ski as fast as I would have liked. After a fairly good first two loops I slowed down as I got tired and my quads got cold. I missed two shots in my first prone and one in my second after receiving a correction. Usually I don't miss more than one shot in prone. My first standing I missed two...the same that I've missed is most races this year. In my final standing stage I came in close behind the third place racer....with good shooting I could easily move up and take third place. In every other race this season where I've had any pressure to shoot well in the final shooting stage I've blown it. This time however I took an extra second settling onto the first target and finished with only one miss, moving me into third. So despite a total six misses in the race, I'm choosing to look instead at the success I had in my final stage, not succumbing to any pressure and missing three, four, or even five shots. Unlike most of my other races this season, I only missed one!

Next weekend I'll race in La Patrie, Quebec so this week I'm taking a lower training week in hopes that I'll feel better on my skis than I did this past weekend. I kicked the week off with a wonderful classic ski at Madawaska this morning. The trails were amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed my lonely romp through the woods. Tomorrow I'll take a day off before getting back to shooting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Some photos from my ski today and the races this weekend:

(Click on any photo to see them all in a slideshow format)