Crazy Ride!

This pace is crazy!

I am having an amazing time post Olympics. There have been a handful of amazing opportunities that I have been lucky enough enjoy. First off the Canadian welcome home to the athletes in Ottawa and Toronto. What can I say? The pictures make it look fun, but it was even more amazing than they express! I am not trying to rub it in by saying so, I am only trying to express my gratitude for such an amazing opportunity. 

I flew home from Hawaii on the red eye after an amazingly restful and warm trip away with my mom and the next day I was off to Ottawa. We landed at approximately 630 pm and I was out having dinner and drinks with teammates and friends by 8pm. The next morning at 8am we went to talk to an elementary school and to visit a children's hospital. The school, as well as the hospital were such rewarding visits. It is really awesome to share my story, journey and medal with children. Their ability to dream and be inspired is so uplifting. It was truly amazing to spend time with them. I hope that the children at the hospital got some joy out of meeting us too. I know that we cannot cure all that ails them with our hardware, but I was happy with making them smile. It wasn't long after these visits and we were whisked off to Parliament for a ceremony with the Prime Minister (no big deal ;) and then onto a train headed for Toronto....exhausted yet? The next few days went on like this with an awesome finale of a parade through the city and the sports hall of fame gala. What a day and what a night! Seriously the trip of a lifetime. I had so much fun!   

Today, Saturday September 29 2012, was "Fast and Female" Sports Day in Vancouver. This was a really cool event (look them up for sure) that Leah and I went to. Events like this one were going on all across Canada and their efforts are meant to help inspire young women to get involved in fitness and sport. I really feel passionately about getting young girls involved in sport. I have never felt more confident and empowered than when I am training, competing and rowing. I feel so lucky to have found rowing and learned these lessons and I want to share that knowledge with others.
I am trying to get over a cold now, but I am wondering what might be next! 

Let the blogging begin!

Well here I am! In some ways it feels like it is a long time coming. I have been thinking about getting into the blog-sphere for a while now. I was thinking that now would be a interesting time to start. A time when I am going through a transition in life from rowing to not rowing full time. Also, this is a very reflective period in my life. Almost everyday I think of a moment in my training and racing and it becomes a nugget to remember; either an emotion a lesson or simply a fact. 

One of the first things that I am doing as a retired rower is looking to learn more about healthy eating and diet. As a full time athlete I ate well, but I didn't confidently know the "why" behind my choices and I am now curious about what small changes and tweaks I could make on how I feel with food and supplements. I have seen many athletes struggle and balloon after coming off their athletic career and I would like to avoid that speed hump completely (if you know what I mean).

I am not doing this alone. I have reached out and I am getting some solid advice and guidance from a professional friend here in Vancouver. We hope to learn and grow as a power team of knowledge and experience and my testimonial will be your reason to give him a call as well. His latest blog speaks to the idea of change.  
http://www.swimupstreamlife.com/2012/09/change.html?utm_source=feedburner&ut

My nugget of last night was about the "comfort zone". Especially, while I was training in the last 2 years I was out of my comfort zone probably 85% (maybe more) of the time. This then became my NEW comfort zone. I really believe that this period of time was when I made the biggest gains! I think that we, including myself, tend to get attached to our habits and this makes it challenging to make necessary changes. As an adult, you can say " I have figured out what works for me" or " you can't teach and old dog new tricks" to ward off the challenge to change. These are (in my opinion and from what I learned about myself when I was getting pushed to make change) a classic defence mechanism that are a hidden display of fear. Change and risk, albeit ever so slight, is scary. Like Richard said though: why not?! At the LTC one of our many mottos was always to try new things that might make us faster or better or stronger and not be afraid of change. If we didn't like the result, we could scrap it and there would be no loss from trying and crossing it off the list. We believed we were turning over rocks to find inches of boat run. I truly believe that mentality was one of the many keys to our success. So why don't we all go and turn over some rocks and look underneath! You never know what we might find!