Everytime we leave the gym, we have to walk through the hockey arena at the University of Manitoba. Usually, this just means pinching our noses to avoid smelling the ridiculously odouress shoulder pads and hockey guards or whatever those girls/guys wear.
THIS TIME however, I see my new friend Scott sharpening hockey skates. I asked if I could take a pic to tweet (like how many times do you actually just see someone with 20 pairs of skates to sharpen in the hallway). Not only did Scott say I could take a picture, he said I could TRY sharpening skates if I wanted to. I then asked him how many years he'd been sharpening skates, sort of as a joke thinking he'd answer "Oh this is a hobby, I only do it now and then". Nope, he's been sharpening skates for 7, yes SEVEN years.
Anyways, check it out. I feel like I can add something to my resume after today.
Okay....my bad I've been a little MIA with the blog but not because nothing has been happening in the volleyball world! On the contrary so much stuff is going on that I've been pre-occupied. Thats going to change dont worry :) The biggest news of the week was that our Olympic Qualifier, which has been scheduled for January 2012 for probably a year now, has been moved to May 2012.
This is obviously a massive change in our schedules, not only for training purposes, but for funding as well. We only had enough funding to get us through to January, now with the change, we won't get paid for the January-May months. Which makes training very difficult. If we can't find Pro contracts, then we will continue to train in Winnipeg but we'll only train in 1 time per day (instead of our usual 2 times per day) because we will need to get jobs to survive (food is kinda important when your an athlete). Our coach has decided we will train in the mornings come January, and the afternoons will be set aside for employment. Imagine this, the most important year for training, and we have to cut it down due to a lack of funding. Oh well, on the bright side maybe my hips will finally heal and won't be all bruised and cut up from diving on the gym floor all the time. No but seriously, we'll find a way to manage. Check out this little video of Jen and I discussing the change of dates!
Normal Saturday afternoon, just heading home from Cosco after picking up 12 cartons of Almond milk, chicken wings, veggie platter, ghiradelli brownie mix, and Cozy Shack pudding, and Lauren and I see Jaki waiting by the side of the road on Pembina highway. We figure shes probably going home to Rez, cause none of us have any friends outside of volleyball here in Winnipeg, and shes waiting at the wrong bus stop, for the wrong bus, on the wrong side of the road. We figure being the good teammates we are that we should probably swing around and pick her up and drive her home. However, by the time we make it to the bus stop, the bus has already come and whisked her away!!! So heres the video of us chasing down the bus....Oh yea and after we got a free car wash :) SCORE!
The Full Time training centre girls of Team Canada took a little trip down to Costa Rica to train/scrimmage against Team Costa Rica. Sometimes we get scared of the food in foreign countries cause it can make us siiicckkkk and no one likes to play volleyball with a sick tummy....so we talk a little bit about our fun food preferences haha. Enjoy :)
Recovery is important for every athlete. Every Friday night after practice, we jump in the cold tubs, then the hot tubs, then get massaged, then sometimes get needles stuck into us (aka acupuncture). Sometimes we get stuck in the clinic fairly late, so to speed up the process I just figured why not help out and take some of the needles out of my roomie Beth myself. She only shed a little bit of blood haha....
Wow its been a while since I posted a blog! The whole collapsed lung thing combined with surgery, recovery, rehab, its been a couple of long and tough weeks! Luckily, I'm almost back to 100% with training so I'm feeling a lot better :)
We took a trip with our coaches to Quebec City, Quebec, to check out the Canadian University volleyball nationals. Check out some of the highlights here, including some game footage from the semis and the Finals. Congrats to the UBC Thunderbirds for their 4th consecutive National Championship!!!! Good work ladies!!!
This post is basically self explanatory. Basically, my lung collapsed during cardio training one day, but we didnt figure that out until a couple days later....
