4:40am
It’s dark. My phone lights up across my
room and Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel begins
to play. I am so tired. My body aches; my eyelids feel like they weigh 1000lbs,
what the hell am I doing? Before I can get one more negative thought through my
mind, I leap out of bed and throw on my training shorts and T-shirt I placed
out the night before. I inhale a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and head to the
garage.
5:00am
* Snap snap * – I lock my boots into my rollerskis and put on my poles and roll
down the driveway. Like most mornings, it’s an hour and a half session. The
first 30 minutes I just try to find my rhythm; how does my body feel? I focus
on being dynamic while trying to find my glide. I drop my poles on the side of
the path and spend the next 20 minutes legs only. Punch, glide, punch, glide,
punch, and glide. I need to get over my skis better; I need to glide more with
less movement. I grab my poles; it’s time for some speed work. I use a pinecone on
the path as a start line; I imagine I am lining up at the start line of World
Championships. It’s me against the best in the world. “Skiers take your start
positions, set … BAM” the mental gun it my head goes off. I launch out of my
start gate as fast as I can. I am completely relaxed. For the next 15 seconds I
am flying, I am getting over my skis like I did during my legs only work. There
is no one in the world that can beat me in this moment. I cross my finish line
(the garbage can on the side of the path), a good sprint. I do 7 more of these,
improving each one. It’s time to cool down, I spend the next 20 minutes at a
controlled pace working on my technique on my way back home. I take a deep
breath; the first step of the day is done.
6:45am
I chow down another two bowls of cereal,
take a shower, pack a lunch, and throw my training gear into the car. Time to
go to work.
7:45am
I arrive at work. I start marking
off the orders coming in and get ready to unpack product and stock shelves for the next
9 hours. I have 15 full skids to unpack and stock. As I stock the shelves and
work the cash I only have one thing on my mind, skiing. Each hour that passes
by I think to myself, “$11 dollars closer to being able to go to Norway”. This
is my mission, I don’t want to be here… but I know where I want to go.
5:00pm
I grab my bags, rush out the door, and jump
in the car; it’s straight to team training. I pass by my house on my way; all I
want to do is turn left and go home to sleep… But I keep driving.
5:30pm
* Snap snap * - I put on my rollerskis, strap on
my poles and begin to warm-up with the team. 5x5mins hard uphill double pole
intervals. My eyes are drowsy on the first two intervals, and my legs are
exhausted from standing all day. My body is on the edge. I grit my way through
the third interval, my teammates Joey and Kieran are stronger than me at the
start, but as the hill gets steeper I crank the tempo and go for the pass;
victory, now just two more. I try the same move on the fourth interval and
fail; on the fifth I am off the back. Lactate acid fills my arms, core and
legs; I cannot possibly get enough air, I watch my teammates take off up the
hill as I focus purely on the pain I am experiencing. I am done for the day.
7:30pm
I drive home.
7:45pm
I unpack my equipment from the car, head
inside, eat a delicious dinner my awesome mom has made, and get ready for bed.
9:00pm
I lie out a pair of shorts and a t-shirt
and then fall into bed. In the few moments I lay there before I fall asleep I
think to myself, “Just two more months of this. Just two more months and you’ll
have enough money to go to Norway. You can do this. For the dream.”
Next
day 4:40am
It’s dark. My phone lights up from across
the room…
This was the typical routine last summer. One might ask, why? I know I do. Why put
your body through this stress? Why put your mind through the stress? You’re not
enjoying this, why are you doing it? Why do you revolve everything you do
around this one thing?
When I ask myself these questions the
answer is always, “because this is my dream.”
I could leave this post at that, but I have
thought about this a lot over the past year. About what my goal is, why I want
to do this so badly, and I think I finally have the explanation(s) I have been
looking for. I have found three major components that I have been drawing my
motivation from.
The first component of my athletic dream is
curiosity. I am so curious to see how good I can get at this sport. What was
once a bunny rabbits class my parents registered me for is now something that
has provided my with the opportunity to travel the world, meet countless
amazing friends, represent my country, and so much more. It is crazy; I want to
see how much further I can take this. I am beyond privileged to have this
opportunity and at the very least I have to try to see what I can do with it. To become the best skier I can be. I
don’t want to look back on my ski career and ask myself, “what if”.
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| Where it all began |
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| World Juniors 2017 |
The second component is the materialistic
stuff. The core of my motivation is curiosity, but I definitely have big goals
of what I can do in terms of results. I want to stand on the start line for
Canada at World Championships and at the Olympics. And more importantly, I want
to cross the finish line for Canada with a race that myself, my friends, and my
family can be proud of. Each year that
passes (especially this past one) these goals become more and more realistic.
Watching the Olympics this year was inspiring as usual, and as it came to an
end I thought for a second, “That was really cool, can’t wait to see the next
one in four years.” Then it hit me, the next one, 2022, that’s us. It’s a bold
claim, of course there will be a long list of strong Canadian athletes chasing
those spots, but I am confident in my improvements and my plan to continue
improving to set this goal for myself.
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| U23 Aggregate Podium Nationals 2018 ... progress. |
The third piece that has been on my mind recently
has been apart from skiing. About a year and a half ago I decided that after my
ski career I wanted to become a teacher. As a kid I often struggled in school,
partly due to me genuinely not understanding stuff, partly due to my lack of
interest and effort. I hated school; I hated how the teachers looked and spoke
to me like I was stupid. The only thing that made it bearable was getting to
see my friends everyday. If you asked me if I wanted to be a teacher a few
years ago I would have said ‘no’ before you could finish the question. But over
the past few years something changed, a realization, if you will. I have begun
to realize the positive impact the good teachers have had on my life, and how
important teachers are. If done right, I think teaching is the most impactful
career in the world. In no other job does anyone get to interact, work, and
speak with the next generation like a teacher does. So that’s what I want to
do. I want to helps students find their passions, find what they want to do
with their lives, or at the very least help them get a sense of direction. I
also have a lot of ideas that I would like to work on and bring to the
education system. This is a big goal for me post-ski career.
But how is this a motivator for my skiing?
Well, I think to myself a lot about whether I want to continue skiing, or
pursue my to pursue my other life goals. Of course skiing is my focus now, but
I do have a lot of other stuff I want to do. What keeps me focused on skiing is
the life experience I will get out of pursuing my athletic dream. I think
that if I just crushed out school for the next three to five years and became a
teacher, I wouldn’t bring the value that I would like to have. I wouldn’t have
the life experience that I think is so important in teaching. And who would I
be to stand if front of a class and tell them to chase their dreams, if I
didn’t see mine through myself? I have to at least try, try to see how far I
can take my passion. If I am completely honest, a lot of the time this motivates
me for my skiing more than my ski specific goals. What I do with the rest of my
life beyond sport is really important to me, something beyond just myself. I
don’t want to get too emotional on the blog, but I really want to world to be a
better place because I was here, and I desperately don’t want it to be worse. I
don’t know how big of a difference I can make; but I am thinking about it, and
that’s a start.
That is the Readers Digest version of why I am still
pursuing this. For me it is really important to ask myself the big “why”. Because
of course I ski because I love it, but there comes a point where it is about
more than just enjoying the sport. Everything I am doing in my life for the
next number of years will revolve around skiing, and that means putting a lot
of other life stuff on hold. I didn’t pack up my life in Canada and move to
Norway just because I like to ski, I did it for of all of the reasons listed
above. It’s for the dream.
So where does that leave us, what’s the
next step? I just arrived home after my first full season in Norway. I am home
to get surgery on my hips after struggling for the past few years with chronic
pain. I’m not going to lie I am pretty nervous. A total recovery time of 4
months with 1 month in a wheelchair, it’s a little intimidating.
But my plan is to be travelling back to
Norway as soon as I am better. After spending a year there I now truly realize how
much room I have to improve. There is just a level there that you can’t
experience anywhere else. I still have so much to learn and explore. And if I am taking my goals seriously, for myself, I
have to be there. So the plan is to base out of Norway for the foreseeable
future. I am really excited for it.
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| From my first day in Norway with Team Asker, excited to continue working with this group |
But following next week it will just be focusing on recovery. Maybe I will have some more frequent blogs while I'm posted up in a wheelchair, probably won't have much else to do. We will see.
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Rj
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