A Day In The Life...

So, what’s its like training full time with Team Canada? I'll tell you.

It’s hard. Super hard.

OK, so Monday. We wake up around seven thirty am and eat. Usually eggs cereal toast etc. A McGriddle if I’m late personally. Then it’s off to weights by nine. We have to eat so early because our bodies are pushed so hard so early in the day, we need fuel to burn, and that requires digestion, which takes a while. Then we go to a gym (which takes another 45 mins cuz whoever designed the Winnipeg road system smoked little to much wacky tibacky while listening to Neal young), ran by the infamous Kari. Kari is a 5 foot something firecracker. She enjoys long walks on the beach, and pain. Pain being inflicted on others. The next two and a half hours are spent mostly in pain while moving the body in an un-natural fashion. Like a platoon that sings on a long march to pass the time, we to listen to music to pass the time; periodically interuped by Alexandre's screams of passion and agony.

Mondays we do a full body weight session. this includes running in a circle for ten mins (usually in full sweats, sweaters, and torques cuz its MAD cold in Winnipeg), followed by a second warm up we call, the "Dynamic warm up" its basically jogging while flailing parts of your body as to stretch it out a bit. After that we work through a barrage of exercises; from clean and jerks, to one legged squats. After pushing ourselves to almost complete exhaustion, we stretch and drink chocolate milk (not provided by team Canada), cuz nothing nutritious the body after a workout like chocolate milk. For real. Studies have shown.

So after a full days work before noon, we are usually done about 11:30am. Oh how I love 11:30 am. At this time we all get to go home and eat. We eat SOOO much. Sooo much food. We have to. When you think about the amount of energy we use in a day, it’s silly. And the energy has to come from somewhere, or we won't recover. And on top of just recovery, most of us are trying to make gains. Weight and strength gains. So we eat huge amounts of everything. Otherwise we'd waste away. Making and eating lunch usually takes to about 1 pm.

Now 1 pm would be the logical time to get things done. Things meaning, normal people stuff. I.e. laundry, pay bills, grocery shopping etc. But no. This is not what we do. Cuz we're not normal. For most of us, 1 pm mean lights out. Most of us nap for 1-2 hours a day. It’s a necessity. Honestly, we're not just lazy, it’s quite the opposite. It’s needed to help us recover, because without a nap, our afternoons are hooped. And believe me; we need every ounce of energy on the evenings.

After nap time, we get up and... You guessed it, eat some more. Because by this time stuff will have digested and we'll be able to fit some more. Nothing to big, just a kicker. then its off to practice at 4, again cuz traffic sucks in this city, and it takes close to an hour to get to the army base were we train. So when five o’clock rolls around, and everyone is taped and strapped up, its soccer time. We play every day for ten mins. It’s a great full body warm up, and it’s funny to watch how much we suck. After that, it’s another dynamic warm up, then an arm warm up with tubing before we start throwing the balls around; then pepper, then we start practice. All that takes at least half an hour. Maybe 45 mins every day. We’re not young bucks anymore. We need these warm ups or we'd collapse. Especially these old dudes. Volleyball is a very stressful game on your joints. You just wait, you’ll see. During the next two hours, most of us will get exhausted to the point of not being able to get off the floor for a moment until we can catch ourselves and C green "motivates" us to get up. Most days there are points in practice where the lactic acid in our legs disables us to move like a normal human being for moments. But we do this everyday. So give us a min, and our bodies will recover.

So around 8-830ish and all the stretching is done, the chocolate milk has been drank, and the ice packs strapped to the knees and shoulders, we get to go to our homes. Or where ever we sleep (I refuse to call Winnipeg home). At this point all we wanna do is eat and sleep. So, we cook, and again make copious amounts of food, and eat as much as we can. At this point it’s late, but we still wanna kid ourselves that we have normal lives, so sometimes we'll go to movies, or watch a hockey game. By the time its over, we're dead tired, and slip semi-consciously into bed. Cuz morning comes fast. Only four more days till the weekend.

Although we do this five days a week, I think its important to point out, we do get along with each other. We laugh when we need to laugh. We work hard when we need to work hard. We grind. I believe it was Snoop that said "I paid the cost, to be the boss".

But we enjoy what we do. Most days are hard, but our work uniform has a maple leaf on it.

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