Emotions that lie too deep for words… That’s what I’ve been feeling this week! An overwhelming sense of home, community, and support!
I am currently at home in Prince Edward Island. No, it’s not vacation! We were just sent home for a few days while our sleds are being shipped over to Europe for the next batch of races. The first two races were in North America, and I pushed Kaillie Humphries for both. In the first race in Park City, Utah we placed 6th (podium finish) but we shattered the start record with a push of 5.20 seconds. (The previous record being 5.25 seconds.) The second race was in Lake Placid, NY this past Saturday. Kaillie and I tied the start record and finished with a bronze medal! As soon as the medals were awarded and our sled was delivered safely to our garage, I rushed to strip out of my speedsuit and get my luggage to drive to Montreal with my parents to catch our flight to PEI. Why the big rush?
On Sunday (the day following our race), I felt honoured to carry the Olympic flame for a leg of the Torch Relay. It meant even more because I was chosen by my city to be the one to run onto the stage during the celebration and light the cauldron in front of my hometown. But I was not prepared for the crowd of people through which I had to run. I was not prepared for both the familiar and unfamiliar faces in the crowd, screaming and cheering for me and the flame as we passed by. I was not prepared for the overwhelming sense of pride for the province and city in which I grew my roots and my wings, just before lighting the cauldron on behalf of my people. I was not prepared for the lump in my throat that quickly formed when trying to answer the host’s question about how I was feeling at that moment!
Photo by: Journal Pioneer
But that’s not all! Financial assistance is often a primary challenge for Canadian amateur athletes. Last spring I decided I would throw a fundraiser dinner in PEI this fall to help raise a bit of money for living and training expenses. Over the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Bruce Rainnie – the anchor for CBC PEI – and asked if he would host the dinner for me. A few weeks later, he told me that because part of the proceeds were going to a charity/cause, CBC would take over the planning of the whole event!
Although I helped get items for the silent and live auctions, I really had no idea how amazing this event was becoming, until I was actually there on Tuesday! Bruce was a great host, keeping everything light and funny, while Boomer Gallant was a hilarious auctioneer. The brilliant CBC Olympic commentator, Scott Russell, flew in from Edinburgh to be the main speaker of the evening. His passion for the Olympic Games was inspiring, and his sense of community and the importance of family/home to success really resonated with me. His emotion brought me (and most of the room) to tears.
Photo by: Laura Yorke
Multiple ECMA award-winning singer/songwriter, Lennie Gallant, entertained everyone later in the evening. I had the pleasure and good fortune of meeting him a couple of summers ago at a charity golf tournament. He’s as amazing a person as he is talented, and I feel honoured that he rearranged his schedule to take part in this dinner for me.
So, I really want to thank a number of people for their heart-warming generosity. I would like to thank CBC, Holland College, McDonald’s and Delta Prince Edward for making this evening possibly. A special thanks to my family and to those people from APM who were able to attend. APM has come on board as my primary personal sponsor for this important World Cup season, and it was great to have some people from the company to represent! Their assistance is greatly appreciated!
But I really need to thank everyone who attended the dinner for making it the success that it was! It was a very emotional night for me, as I was overwhelmed by the turnout of people and the things that were said and done, specifically to help me on my Olympic journey! I have attended a number of fundraising events before, but the night before my dinner it suddenly occurred to me that everyone would be there for me! – to help me! And I was overcome with emotion before the day of the dinner even arrived! Throughout the dinner I almost cried about five times, and only really cried once! Had I tried to finish my sentence at the end of the evening about how I was feeling, that would have changed my crying tally to two!
There really are no words to describe the feeling of representing home! Especially in front of home! Hmmm… I guess that’s what the 2010 Olympics will be like! If I am awarded the honour of representing my country in front of my country, I expect that that, too, will be an emotional and indescribable event.
Photo by: Laura Yorke
But although emotions will be with me throughout this entire season and, hopefully, into the Games, it is the support behind the emotion, the passion and the focus – not the emotion itself – that will get me there and get me through it! So, I thank you for your support! From the bottom of my heart! Because this journey would not be the same without you!
What? The Olympic Games are only a hundred days away? Wow! That’s hard to believe! It may surprise many of you to know that the only reason I know this little fact is because I was asked how I felt about this a couple of days ago by a reporter. Why didn’t I know this? Because, truth be told, I have not been following the media hype about the Olympics. I have not been glued to my television screen watching the Torch Relay. And I have not been spending my spare moments looking at either the Olympic medals or the athlete clothing, waiting for the day. And how do I feel about this 100 day marker, you might ask? Well, it’s not an easy answer.
Am I excited about the Games? Yes and no. Let me explain… Yes, I am excited like every Canadian that the Olympics are going to be held on our Canadian soil, for all the world to see how wonderful our country is and how hospitable our Canadians. But... it’s hard to get excited about competing in the Games, when I won’t even know until the middle of January if I’ve made the Canadian Olympic team. And I know it’s cliché, but if I only focus on the destination and the goal, and not the steps along the way, then I will not be successful in even making it there For me (and many athletes), the Olympics are not 100 days away. They are a full World Cup Circuit away. They are 8 World Cup races away. They are 8 races in 5 different countries away. They are a LOT of training sessions, sore muscles, and phone calls to home away!
And yes, representing my country is always an honour, and the thought of competing on behalf of my fellow Canadians in front of friends and family – those who have helped make me the person and athlete I am today – is definitely exciting. I know what it’s like to compete for Canada on home soil! The last Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2006 was hosted in Edmonton. It was such a great feeling, but was also very difficult not wanting to let people down, especially with them there watching! Yes, these Games will be a much bigger deal in the media, with added scrutiny. But pressure is what you put on yourself.
The idea of walking out of the start house to the starting block, staring down the track while waiting for the green light to flash, with a sea of red lining the track with thunderous cheering only somewhat muffled by my helmet… that’s exhilarating! But, for me, this excitement is muted – contained and controlled because of not wanting to get ahead of myself! As I already mentioned, there’s a long season first. And there are no guarantees! And whether people are watching or not, whether media is there or not… I still have a job to do! And, if I am given the opportunity to push a Canadian sled in the 2010 Olympics, it will be amazing! But it will also be the same job that I have to do for this whole season, one race at a time!
The start of the season is so close I can now feel it in my bones! Part of that may be the chill that I haven’t felt since last winter. This, I’m sure, is due to the fact that I just flew back to Calgary a few days ago to push in the ice house before we fly to Whistler this Saturday, and it’s full-on snowing outside! People often comment how I must love the cold because I’m in a winter sport. Well, let me just say, I was NOT thinking about the temperature when I decided to take on the challenge of bobsleigh.
I am a very warm-hearted, but cold person. And by cold I mean chilled. After living in Trinidad for a few years, I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth when I asked someone at an outdoor function if they had brought a sweater I could borrow! Well, to justify my request, the temperature HAD dropped to only 29o Celsius!
My sister is not the only one who has jokingly said (unsympathetically, of course) that maybe I need to put some fat on my bones! Now, I am not a skinny/thin person. I am not a size small. I am certainly not tiny! I am a very muscular 5’10” and 166 lb healthy athlete. However, I am currently dealing with an issue that I never thought I would have to face. It’s an issue that I’m hesitant to bring up, for fear of being hated by all the women in the world who struggle with their weight… I have been officially told by a doctor who specializes in elite athletes that I need to try to put on some body fat!
As an athlete we get anthropometric testing done – a test that looks at muscle mass, fat mass/percentage, fat to muscle ratio, etc. This is the first summer that I’ve been able to train the whole summer focusing on bobsleigh. Since May I’ve put on 5 lbs of weight and my body fat percentage has gone down 5%! Normally, that would be a good thing – a good reflection of my training – but my fat to muscle ratio has reached a level that may not be functionally beneficial to my sport. It may be too low to recover properly from training sessions or competitions. I may be more prone to muscular injuries when performing in the cold weather without much insulation. And it may take me a lot longer to recover from a simple cold.
I am NOT a dieter (and am, in fact, fortunate to be able to eat what I want), but this summer I had simply tried to increase my vegetable and protein intake. Lately I’ve been trying to add even more carbs to my meals, however. Because I’ve never restricted my diet or avoided any foods, the doctor said that my training regimen would have to change instead. No more hypertrophy (muscle-building) training. Although my loving sister did offer to donate some of her body fat (of which she has very little considering the recent birth of her second son), my training is now focused more on speed and power instead – sport-specific, and I’m excited to see how it translates to the track!
I know some of you may be thinking that there are bigger problems than not having enough body fat, and you’re right in the grand scheme of things. I do realize that I am currently blessed with a high metabolism, but for me and this particular career it comes down to functional performance! My first season bobsledding was also my first season lifting weights. I have already trained more this summer than I did before I went to the 2006 Olympics in Turin. What is the ideal amount or type of training? Who knows?!
Well, when I mentioned being tested for body composition, it was during our last testing camp in September. Before the camp I was a bit concerned since I hadn’t been able to do any running or jumping for about 6 weeks because a bone scan had revealed the early stages of a stress fracture in my left shin. I was pleased with my testing results – the highest vertical jump and farthest medicine ball throw on the team, 0.03 seconds away from my personal best (PB) 30m sprint, tied my PB for single push testing in the ice house. I was pleased, considering what I’d gone through and where I was coming from, as long as I could keep things in perspective! I need to remember that I want to peak for the World Cup season, not for a testing camp in September two months before our first race!
It was a busy summer and I can’t believe that it’s over. I was fortunate to have been able to participate in a few charity golf tournaments, take part in the first week of the Canada Summer Games, be interviewed in the press box during an Argos football game, appear on Off The Record and Canada AM a couple of times, and find some downtime with my family at the cottage between workouts and public speaking events – feeding blue jays, chipmunks, and squirrels, and plunking around on my new guitar. Spending time with my family was wonderful and I will cherish every moment and take any chance I get! It was not easy leaving the peace and quiet of my cottage to head to the gym, so I am proud of my commitment and the training I did this summer. But the bobsleigh season is now moments away and the cold is settling in for the winter. So here’s to me, embracing the promise of the cold, and looking forward to a great winter.
Smiles.......
