Saranac Lake High School senior Lauchlan Cheney-Seymour smiles during a drill at the school’s cross-country running practice Monday evening. (Enterprise photo — Justin A. Levine)

SARANAC LAKE — Local Olympians and Olympic hopefuls turned in strong performances last weekend at the U.S. Biathlon National Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vermont, including one high-schooler who finished competing just in time for cross-country running season to start.

While Olympians like Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke had strong showings, Saranac lake senior Lauchlan Cheney-Seymour also recorded impressive times during the championships, including a pair of top-five finishes. Lake Placid’s Nina Armstrong also had a weekend of success in the Junior Women’s category.

Cheney-Seymour was back in town just in time for his first day of cross-country running practice, and was pretty happy with his performances over the weekend.

“It was good … taking one step farther to going to Estonia for World Juniors (Championships) this year,” Cheney-Seymour said. “It would be pretty sweet.”

Cheney-Seymour’s main focus is on biathlon, but that doesn’t mean running is something he takes lightly.

“I wouldn’t say I use it as training — it’s definitely something to build my cardio capacity for skiing — but I love it as a sport and I think the team aspect is really cool also,” he said. “I’ve been training all summer for skiing and running, just alternating workouts, so both should be good this year.”

Cheney-Seymour said his training runs the gamut — from easy weeks to hard weeks, with as many as 26 hours of training during what he called “volume weeks.” He said his easy weeks consist of 15 to 18 hours of training, and that one of his days usually consisted of a three- or four-hour hike or something similar.

“It’s for a peaking plan,” he explained. “So I’ll peak during cross-country states (championships) and then again in the winter for skiing.

“So you build up aerobic and anaerobic thresholds up to a certain point, meaning your rests get shorter. And you slowly get way ramped up, and then just before the race you drop off a little bit so your body is used to that high intensity. And then it’s just like you recycle that plan to peak again for skiing.”

In addition to training, Cheney-Seymour also worked this summer and practiced skiing on roller skis. Much like many local standouts, he was exposed to biathlon at a young age, mostly by his father Kris Cheney-Seymour, who is a biathlon coach and the events manager at Mount Van Hoevenberg Cross Country and Biathlon Center.

“I’ve been nordic skiing since I was 3 or 4,” he said. “So after a while I wanted to try it, and it turns out I like the combination of skiing and shooting a gun. It immediately caught my interest and I was like, ‘OK, I want to do this,’ so everything else is kind of geared toward doing that better.”

Cheney-Seymour is planning to take a gap year after graduating high school in the spring to focus on training. He plans to either train in Lake Placid or at the Ethan Allen Biathlon Center in Jericho, Vermont, where the rollerski championships were held.

Cheney-Seymour posted solid results last weekend, earning top-5 finishes against fields made up of some of the finest biathletes from the U.S. and Canada. He placed fifth in Saturday’s sprint race and third in the pursuit. Burke, a three-time Olympian from Paul Smiths, placed fifth in the sprint, while Bailey, of Lake Placid, took first.

Armstrong won the junior women’s division in the pursuit and Bailey and Burke went 2-3 in Sunday’s mass start race.

Cheney-Seymour’s performances qualified him to move on to the next level, known as the trials, which will be held in Minnesota this year.

“So I’ll go to Minnesota and if those races go well, I’ll go to Estonia and then Slovakia for world juniors,” he said.

Following in the shadow of athletes like Burke and Bailey is no small feat, and Cheney-Seymour sees the Olympic rings in his future as well.

“Yeah, that’s definitely the goal,” he said of the Olympics. “So that’s definitely what I’m trying to strive for.”