Well… it’s the morning before our first World Cup rugby game. A few hours from now, I will be jogging out onto the rugby pitch with 14 of my national teammates, looking forward to representing my country again on the international stage. Yes, I found out a couple of days ago that I am in the starting line-up for this first game against Scotland. But let me tell you… physically and mentally, the lead-up to this game as not been an easy one!
To be honest, the past month has been difficult – a bit like a roller coaster. Without knowing my role on the team, or what I should expect in terms of playing time at the World Cup, etc., I found myself questioning a lot of things, and struggling to find motivation leading up to the departure. I was being asked to do a number of interviews, but wondered why me, and not a captain or veteran who had seen the developments of the team over the past few years. Because I hadn’t played rugby in so long, knowing that I had only played 4.5 full rugby games this summer (and in the past 2.5 years), I started wondering if I was really good enough at rugby, or just at interviews! And, to be perfectly honest, I was very close to pulling out of the World Cup because of thoughts that I was setting myself up for public failure! I know that doesn’t sound very ‘Olympic’, but I’m being perfectly honest! After a lot of thought and contemplation, I realized that I am playing this sport because I LOVE this sport! I am playing this sport because I actually WANT to play this sport! I don’t HAVE to – I WANT to!
On our travel day to the UK ten days ago, a teammate read me some posts made on a rugby forum to let me hear how ridiculous some of them were, and went on to read her post which defended my position on the team. The other posts she was reading were from critics during the summer who were questioning my selection to the CanAm tour, and my abilities as a rugby player, saying that my try was lucky. When another post reminded readers about my seven tries at the last World Cup, it was then stated that maybe I was only on the team because of my speed…
I don’t ever read posts in forums (unless it’s opinions on something I’m considering purchasing), and very rarely read anything in the papers or online about me, unless it’s been pointed out – even after major interviews I’ve done. But I’m definitely not used to reading or hearing anything negative! I didn’t think it would affect me, but it did a bit! I couldn’t get some of those comments out of my head for the rest of the night! Why? Probably because those are thoughts (or doubts, if you will) that have crossed my mind at various times, not only this past summer, but throughout my life! Was I only a starter on the varsity soccer team because of my speed? Because my ball skills definitely weren’t amazing! Same question for basketball! I almost quit sports in high school because I feeling so much pressure, but got the feeling that I was being ‘used’ for my speed!
It’s not easy for anyone setting high goals and trying to reach them. But it’s even harder putting those goals on display for the world to see if you succeed or fail! I know there are critics out there hoping to see me fail (which would make them right in their predictions), but I know there are a LOT more people out there who are supporting me and the rest of this amazing team, hoping to see us succeed because they know that that’s what WE want – not what THEY want!
I play this sport because I love it! No other reason! I know that an Olympic gold medal in one sport does not transfer to a gold medal performance in all other sports (although some people seem to forget that)! I know that I am fast and that that is my strength on the rugby field. But I’m not delusional – I know I have weaknesses as well. I have to TRUST my coach’s decisions. I have to trust that I have been chosen for a reason, despite his knowledge of my weaknesses. And, as for “lucky tries”… It’s not luck when I’ve got a phenomenal team of girls beside me, who have worked so hard and done their jobs in order to get me the ball to finish what they started! That is not luck. That’s teamwork!
I’m sorry if this entry was a bit more blunt than usual – I’m freeing up my mind to focus on beating the Scottish! I am excited about this game today, as are the other girls. Nerves will be on edge, heartbeats a little bit faster than normal… but we are ready to dominate and show the world what Canada is made of! I hope you all enjoy following the tournament, and hopefully I can contribute to making it as exciting as possible, whatever my role may be.
Smiles………
Heather
Soooo…. I owe you all a big apology! I have not written a blog since Christmas, and A LOT has happened since then! As you probably already know, I am now an Olympic gold medalist from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler! It is crazy! Very surreal! It’s not that I didn’t think that Kaillie and I could win the race… it’s just that suddenly people now want my autograph and their picture taken with me!! I was also given a key to my hometown city of Summerside! It’s been such an honour to be able to represent not only my country but my province and city as well. It just seems so funny when I really just feel like the same person I’ve always been!
Do not be mistaken… I did not win this medal alone! And although Kaillie was my amazing driver/pilot with whom I won, I am actually referring to all of the people who supported Kaillie and me throughout our entire journey! There are no words that can effectively and accurately describe the depth of our gratitude – family, friends, supporters, sponsors, coaches and trainers, etc. The race was for us! The medal, we won for Canada!
Many of you know how stressful the journey was, and how nothing was a sure thing until the very end. This included team selections! Following is something I had written for a blog entry right after the official team was announced, but then did not have internet for awhile to post it. I just thought it might give you an insight as to what was going on in my head at the end of our season…
“January 18th, 2010
We just finished our team meeting that announced our Olympic team members for Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Games… What I’m feeling right now is very difficult to explain. Although Kaillie and I have had a great season, I never once took anything for granted or assumed anything.
Bitter sweet…..
I just found out that I’ve been officially named to our Olympic team for Vancouver. Why is it that I feel more relieved than excited? Don’t get me wrong… I am excited to know that I’ll be able to represent my country again at the Olympics and get another shot at an Olympic medal, but for some reason I think that getting excited now would still be a bit premature! I know that sounds crazy since we’re weeks away from the Opening Ceremonies and a month away from being on Olympic ice, but I’ve been in this sport long enough to know that anything can happen. I still have one more World Cup race to do. I could pull a hamstring or sprain an ankle at any moment, since my current career involves moving awkward heavy objects on layers of ice and mounds of uneven snow. My job is not done just because I have made the Olympic team. At the beginning of this season, my goal was not simply to walk in the Opening Ceremonies wearing a Team Canada jacket. My goal was to push someone to the podium, and then, hopefully, finally relax and be excitedly proud to listen to our National anthem playing over the speakers. But… there is still a lot of work to do!
I also think that my excitement is muted by the knowledge that some of my teammates and friends will not be going to the Games. We all knew that this would happen – that we all would not be able to make the Team – but it doesn’t change the fact that by me achieving the next step of my goal meant that others – close friends – were not able to achieve theirs. This is not an easy time. It is not easy to see the pursuit of other people’s goals come to an end…”
The team announcement was only the first step, however. I was so excited to know that I’d be pushing Kaillie at the Games. Four years ago Kaillie was a still a brakeman, and I basically ‘pushed’ her out of her spot at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy. She and I only started talking again in the winter of ’08/’09 – only a year and half before the Vancouver Games. By pushing her to the fastest starts possible, I found it was a way that I could give something back to her. I was so excited at the possibilities of us competing together, especially after such a successful season. And… we had become really great friends in the process, along with our teammate Amanda Moreley!
The 2010 Olympic Games were amazing! I was proud of what Canada accomplished both in competition, as well as in the running of the Games. Everything from the Athlete Villages, to the delicious food, to the security, to the incredible volunteers, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies!!! Every athlete from other countries to whom I spoke was so impressed with everything. Future Olympic committees will have very big shoes to fill!
We could have been distracted at every turn – the home crowd, the cheers on every corner, the unfortunate death of the Georgian luge athlete on the track that we would be later racing on, the wins/losses of friends also competing in the Games, the general excitement of everything, etc. But Kaillie and I managed to remain focused, knowing that we had a job to do – a job that we wanted to do!
And… we did it! We are now Olympic gold medal champions!!! Crazy!
Well, needless to say, since the Games things have been quite busy for me. I’m not trying to make excuses for not updating you sooner, but things have been crazy! Some days/weeks I feel like I’m just trying to keep my head above water! I have not been on Facebook since before the Olympics because I logged on once to send a birthday wish and found 400 friend requests and almost 500 inbox messages in Facebook, and another 500 email messages! I have not had time to attack them yet, but please know that I am grateful for everyone’s best wishes and congratulations!
Now… not only am I trying to train my body (which, for the past 2 years has only trained for 6 seconds at a time of pure power and speed) to be competitive for an 80-minute rugby game and try to represent Canada again at the Rugby World Cup at the end of the summer, but suddenly now I also have a new tangent career… I am doing motivational speaking for corporations, companies, charity fundraisers, schools, etc. And I am actually enjoying it!! People want to hear about my journey leading up to the winning of an Olympic gold medal – what it takes, overcoming adversity, challenges, perseverance, goals, etc., and I have really enjoyed the opportunity to inspire others. This has actually been my main source of income this summer. Apparently, if I were in the United States I would have endorsements and some major sponsors by now! LOL But that’s not how it works in Canada! The gold medal in Canada gives us the opportunity to work even harder! LOL
So, currently I am balancing speaking engagements with training for rugby. I thought that by returning to rugby I would be getting away from politics, but I guess I’m not that lucky! By the strength and conditioning coach’s request, I only started training for rugby a month and a half ago, so things are a bit frustrating. I have not played 15s rugby for almost 3 years, and I haven’t played any rugby since I broke my shoulder over 2 years ago in a sevens tournament! Oh well… another challenge for the books!
I hope you all enjoyed watching and being part of the 2010 Vancouver Games, and I hope you are all doing well now.
Smiles……
Heather
The first half of the season is finally finished! I was the only brakeman to do all 5 races of the half – 4 with Kaillie Humphries and 1 with Amanda Stepenko in Cesana. I am starting the holidays with 3 new push-start records, and a fourth one that we tied, a track record on Altenberg - one of the most challenging tracks, and both a bronze and a gold medal. Yes, it was a very good first half and I appreciate all of the messages of congratulations from home. But there’s still a lot of the season left to go! There are still three more races for the World Cup circuit, with the Olympic team not being announced until after two of those. So much can still happen between now and then, and that means that I can’t take anything for granted. I am extremely happy about how things have been going, and excited about ending the first half with a push record, a track record, and a gold medal, but…… I mustn’t get ahead of myself!
Enough about racing…. Those are all results that you can find on the internet! How about a little behind the scenes in the life of a bobsledder on tour! And, so you all know, this is being written from the Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt because, after driving 7 hours to Munich on Sunday to fly out on Monday morning, the flights were so delayed that a couple of us missed our connecting flight in Frankfurt back to Canada! I cannot wait to get home to be with my family for the holidays, but frustrations subsided when I saw the news talking about the volcano in the Philippines… I am safe and my family is safe! I will get home eventually!! So the good news is that I have time to update you on some of the off-ice adventures we’ve had over the past couple of weeks.
This sport is certainly not a glamorous one. On top of all of the sled-work we do – sanding/polishing all of the runners, and lifting/carrying/flipping the nearly 400 lbs sleds in/out of trucks, to the start line, in the garage to do work on it, etc., we also have to drive our sled trucks from town to town between races. On our 7 hour drive to Munich, our windshield wiper fluid wasn’t working – everything was frozen. When it got really bad in terms of visibility, while still driving on the autobahn, I leaned out the passenger window to throw water on the windshield, but it froze as soon as it hit the windshield! It only took a couple of stops along the highway before the misting turned into snow, at which point our windshield wasn’t the reason for no visibility anymore!!
The drives between races are usually long. From Cesana, Italy to Winterberg, Germany was about a 9 hour drive. From Winterberg, Germany to Altenberg, Germany it would have been a 5 hour drive if we hadn’t made a little stop on the side of the road! And by ‘little’, I mean almost 2 hours and not by choice! Until that day, I didn’t really understand how anyone could actually run out of gas while driving! I mean, who does that?! Apparently, we do! Alas…. It is possible! Although Kaillie was driving, she tried to blame me for making such a good mixed cd that we were too busy singing along to notice the light come on in the truck. Time was just flying by, and it didn’t seem like we’d been driving for that long. When she finally noticed the light, it still looked like we had enough so we just decided to stop at the next gas station along the autobahn. Well….. there weren’t any gas stations for awhile and we about 100 km away from Dresden when the truck came to a stop! We couldn’t believe it! Amanda tried to make us feel better by saying that it had happened to her before! For some reason that didn’t surprise me! LOL
Amanda and I jumped out of the truck and within 3 minutes she flagged down a car…. With a man who spoke zero English! And although I am learning a little bit of German, I quickly realized that besides ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘what time is it’, nothing I had learned was really appropriate for that situation or to use with a stranger!
The man drove us about 5 km to the next gas station and waited for us. The lady behind the counter was not the least bit useful – half yelling at us in German like we understood what she was saying! We decided to get both gas and diesel because we didn’t know which the truck took. (I never drive the trucks over there because they’re standard and carrying about 100k worth of sleds and equipment!) But…. There was only one gas can left. So…. We decided to take the gas. WRONG! The man drove us all the way back (total round trip of about 20 minutes), and Kaillie sent us back because the truck took diesel! The man waved us back to his car and ended up taking us to his house (WAY out in the middle of nowhere), got his own gas can, drove us back to the gas station to get diesel, and then drove us back to our truck where he filled the truck for us so that we weren’t standing on the autobahn in the dark! Although we had already bought him a coffee (the first time ‘round), we gave him the gas we had originally bought, as well as a couple of photo cards we had in our bags. In the car I had been thinking how sketchy our situation could be, and wondered what my mother would think of this ordeal. But then I realized that sometimes one just has to have a bit of faith in mankind! Not all strangers are bad! Sometimes they’re just “friends you haven’t met yet”!
We got back in the truck to finish our drive and playing on the radio was “Angels Among Us” by Alabama! How appropriate!
