This Saturday, I competed with four friends in an event dubbed the Chump Biathlon.  It involved cross-country skiing a short circuit (a little under a mile) and then shooting relatively large targets from a relatively short distance, maybe 50 feet, with a .22 rifle.  You could call this a remedial biathlon course.

I have never cross-country skied before.  My practice lap around the course was kind of a disaster, with a few falls and multiple failures to ascend small hills.  I think there may have been a waxing issue with my skis, as I had very little traction.  I later switched to some junior-sized waxless skis, which were a huge improvement.  I was a little too large for the skis, so I got great traction (and reduced glide) and had good control over their alignment.  The effect of this switch was that I was able to more or less run through the course with skis on instead of actually having to ski.  I still fell three times, but I made it up all the hills without any trouble.

The shooting went fine.  Everyone hit all or almost all of the targets in the allotted number of shots, so that played no role in the final standings.  The event host and co-organizer, Henry, won the race, narrowly beating out John, the other event host.  I provided a wonderful trophy for the race winner, the #1 Chump, though I kept it relatively modest in size, anticipating that I might not win.  Maybe I’ll post a picture of it some time.

The race was still a lot of fun, so I am not going to complain that the event organizers designed and hosted an event for themselves to win, obtaining a cheap victory over me.  That would be a sore-loser kind of thing to say.