Word: biathlon
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Today I'm firing my gun for the first time, and it feels good. I'm on the target range of the Saratoga Biathlon club near the south shore of the Sacandaga Lake in upstate New York. I'm on skis, and there is a cleverly designed harness on my Russian-made .22-caliber rifle that allows me to carry it on my back as I wend through the woods between shooting stops. The air is cold and it is difficult to hold the rifle still with my heart pounding, but I actually hit a few targets and finish...
...started during the Lake Placid Olympics in '80, when I first saw a short segment on biathlon and it seemed like the coolest winter sport ever (skiing with a rifle on your back - come on!). After the '84 Sarajevo Games my friend Erik suggested that we train for the Calgary Olympics, and the idea caught on. We set about to educate ourselves, but in the pre-Internet 1980s it was tough to find any information about the sport, so we just made it up, happily skiing around the hills in southern Oregon with rifles on our backs, using the wrong...
...settle down. I was in the idea business, which meant long hours sitting at a computer, and as interesting as it was, it caused the bathroom scale to show mysteriously high numbers when I stepped on it in the morning and left me feeling restless and disturbingly normal. The biathlon idea resurfaced and I couldn't get it out of my mind: It offered a real challenge (skiing and shooting do not go together easily); it provided hope for my long-lost Olympic aspirations; but most importantly, it gave relief from the ordinariness that I felt creeping into the corners...
...their own gun, they can't have served time in prison or been in a mental institution." He did cite one case of a man who was thrown out for continuing to shoot as employees were walking down range. Kevin explained that, in a sort of bastardized backcountry biathlon, customers can shoot at bowling pins on Tuesday nights. Machine gun use is discouraged...
...stupid as that name is, it can't possibly be as stupid as another event--the biathlon...