MUNGO EATS Latin America

Sometimes the weekend takes more than a little coordination. Sometimes, we have to devise a whole master plan.

This weekend, there were two separate races, in two separate places, for two separate kids…nothing new for this house, but then we threw in a twist. One of the races was the Kananaskis Ski Marathon, more affectionately know as the Cookie Race. The Cookie Race is put on by our ski club (Foothills Nordic), and it is a big race. The furthest distance raced is 42 km, and there are hundreds of participants every year. As members of the ski club we are expected to bake cookies and volunteer in the organization /running of the race. Kevin took on a larger role this year, becoming chief of controllers. I have no idea what this job entails. I only know that because of this job, he had to be out in Kananaskis on Friday afternoon, instead of Saturday morning. Sara needed to be at the race on Saturday morning and Sean needed to be in Camrose the same morning.

So here is how it all shook out. We luckily have some friends who face the same race dilemmas as ourselves. Bernie and Francine have a daughter, Sophie, that ski races with Sara and a son, Jerome, that does biathlon with Sean. So, on Friday afternoon, Kevin and Bernie headed out Kananaskis together. Saturday am, Francine picked up Sara and dropped off Jerome. The girls headed west and the boys and I headed north. Jerome’s grandparents met him at the range in Camrose, and my job was complete.

The drive to Camrose was hairy. The roads were icy, the traffic was crazy and people were sliding off the road in every direction. I know how I was elected to do the drive north, but I gotta tell you, I am so happy that it is the last one of the season for me. I hate the highway north. It never ceases to amaze me when I get to my destination in one piece. There is still one more biathlon weekend in Hinton, which is located north west of Calgary, but Kevin is on driving duties that weekend, thank goodness!!

I am not sure how the race went in Kananaskis. Sara finished 12th in a very strong field and was very happy with her race. Sean did very well, considering the conditions and circumstances. This was his first “real” race shooting on smaller targets, and to confuse matters worse, the range is just a wide open area, so the wind howls through the range, making shooting even harder. I was proud of Sean’s shooting, he hit just over 50% of the targets over the two days. I know this doesn’t sound spectacular, but many of the older boys shot much lower than that. One teammate, who generally only misses a target or two through a race, shot only 1 of 10 targets in the second day of competition. CRAZY.

The second day was a truly horrific race day. It was about -10, but there was a howling wind, so the windchill was horrible. Before each race, the kids “zero” their rifles. The front site on their rifles can be adjusted to the right or left and up or down, to adjust for conditions. Since the wind was howling into the range, all the guns needed to be adjusted to the right. This way, they would aim more to the right and after the pellet left the gun, it would be pushed left by the wind. Generally, you zero a few “clicks” one way or the other, but yesterday they were adjusting 10 or more clicks to the right. One little girl’s rifle was zeroed as far to the right as possible and it still was not shooting correctly, she had to aim at the right edge of the target, not the center, just to hit the target!!!

The kids were pretty cold. Most of them did okay once they were actually racing, but standing at the start line was torture. Parents stood around, taking jackets off at just the last second. One of our kids was so cold that she quit the race after the first visit to the range. She said she couldn’t feel her hand. This was only her third race, so I don’t know if she just wasn’t dresssed for the conditions? I hope she does not give up racing because of this experience.

I am not sure how Sean did yesterday. We left before results were posted to start the drive home. So far, the results are not on the online site. The first day, he finished 8th. Not bad for his first race on small targets, racing boys at least 2 years older than him. I was just happy that he perservered and did not quit.

Good children….good racing!