“My feet are frozen”

Sliding down the firing line, coaches from multiple nations are standing on wooden pallets, avoiding the mud. The Ukrainians, with veteran coach Nadia Belova behind the spotting scope are next to the Swedes.

Coming in from a foggy warm-up loop are the lone Italians, Lisa Vittozzi and Luka Hofer on the second day of a two-week Swedish stint. Their coaches film every shooting bout, part of the upcoming season’s fine-tuning process. It’s a damp dreary morning; Hofer finishes a hard loop, exclaiming, “My feet are frozen,” as the duo sets out for another loop.

After many Novembers in the dark of northern Finland, the German men and women, minus Franziska Preuss, are “enjoying” Idre. In between loading magazines and bits of energy bars, someone mentions that it feels like Ruhpolding, aka “Rainpolding.”

Still, it was a good opportunity to go full gas before next week’s Swedish Season Opener. First starter Anna Magnusson was as good as at Loop One, shooting clean and speeding across the wet snow. Hanna Oeberg after a tough summer, confidently blew through her ten targets for second. Martin Ponsiluoma went 10-for-10, skiing powerfully through the slush, “but not the best conditions for me.” His clean shooting sealed the top spot over teammate Sebastian Samuelsson who missed a standing shot.

Post-race lunch, some rest, an afternoon session, and one more training day crossed off the list.

On the cusp of the new season, the rhythm remains: train, eat, sleep, repeat…until it morphs into race, eat, sleep, repeat for the duration of the winter.