Blood, Sweat and Jericho!

As you may recall from my last blog post (which was an eternity ago) I mentioned I was thinking about getting a job, you know just to have some money coming in. After a very short conversation that went something like: “Hey, is the deli hiring?” “Sure, when can you start?” I found myself a new job. The first process of working in the deli was watching hours and hours of safety and instructional videos. Due to the sub-par computers in the back office, the whole video process took about a week, other than three days. Once I was finally able to begin work, I learned to slice meat and cheese on the slicer, skew rotisserie chicken, place bread on a pan, and clean the ovens and coolers. Ok, so the deli isn’t the hardest job in the world but it fits in well with my busy training lifestyle. 

Chickens in a bag of boold and guts

Skewed rotisserie chickens

On the training side of things, I had a pretty busy week by myself in Fort Kent. While pretty much everybody else was out in Utah for a training camp, Mikaela Paluzek (http://mikaelabiathlon.blogspot.com/) and I were back here in the east trying to finish our Over-Distance training in the pouring rain. 

skiing in the rain

And even when it wasn’t raining my rollerskis were refusing to roll. On a ski with the PG boys from Presque Isle, my front left rollerski wheel decided to just stop turning… while I was going down a large hill. Due to quick thinking/natural reaction I was able to twist onto my back and let my drink belt take most of the impact. I was a little cut up on my side and my elbow but I was able to escape with no major injuries.

Battle scars

Ripped my favorite shirt

As the calendar moved into the later part of October, it became time for Jericho part II. The Jericho rollerski races are a set of trial races for USBA to decide the team for the first World Cup in Sweden. I was a very, very, very long shot for qualifying for the team and guess what, I didn’t make it.  But it’s ok because qualifying for the team was not the goal for me. My job at the rollerski races was to begin to get back into race mode and be read to race fast in December.

Bib #1 at Jericho

Upon returning to Fort Kent from Jericho, I will admit was feeling a little unmotivated. Both pairs of my skate rollerskis were delaminating and cracking, my classic skis weren’t rolling (see paragraph 3) and my training boots were being held together by three pounds of duct tape. All this combined with sub-par results in Jericho was making me feel a little depressed and made it tougher to get out the door. But thankfully Mother Nature saw me in my time of need and delivered a much needed gift.

Waking up on November 3^rd to a beautiful coat of white, powdery gold was just the thing I needed to remind me what I’m training for. Although there was only 3 inches (8cm) of snow here in Fort Kent, Presque Isle received close to a foot (30 cm). Instead of going to scheduled team practice up at the 10^th mountain center here in FK I decided to drive down to PI and do some rock skiing on a 2K loop groomed out by my MWSC teammate, Welly Ramsey (http://wellyramsey.blogspot.com/) . Although the trail was groomed with an old snowmobile dragging a palate, it was great to be on skis again!

Beautiful day for a ski!
Me(L) Casey Smith (R)

Olympian Russell Currier 

Welly doing some trail maintenance 

Welly raking off some leaves

Kat Howe skiing on the "Carabou Glacier" 

the "groomer"

Again this year MWSC is doing the Skiers to Schools program. This year, Kelsey Dickinson (http://kelseyjdickinson.blogspot.com/) and I will be visiting 2 schools together, Eagle Lake and Fort Kent Elementary Schools. The first visit to the EL 3^rd grade class was pretty tough. Coming from a school of 2000 kids and class rooms with 30 kids in them, the Eagle Lake School of 7 kids was pretty unusual for me. These kids did not want to talk and really did not care about biathlon. But the FK class on the other hand had about 20 kids who were firing off questions as we were walking in the door. I like visiting the schools because even if I can’t teach anything about biathlon or healthy lifestyles, it at least gives me an opportunity to practice my public speaking.

Kelsey and I at Fort Kent Elementary 

So what’s next for Brian Halligan, you ask? CANMORE! The start of the season! On Wednesday Nov. 12^th I am flying out to Alberta, Canada to ski on the manmade loop they have out there. The rough schedule goes as follows: Canmore to Minnesota (Dec. 14^th to 25^th) to Alaska (Dec.25^th to Jan. 1^st) then back to FK, or who knows where. Unfortunately that means I will be on the road of Christmas, but I guess that’s one of the sacrifices I have to make to achieve my goals!

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Oh and I might as well mention something about the Ebola, since it did make world news and kind of put Fort Kent on the map. Just the fact that Kaci Hickox lives in a tiny town up in the northern Maine woods, the same town I live in, a town 3 hours away from everything else is just so ironically funny, it’s hard for me to not laugh.

The scene out side the Ebola house. So many TV cameras