from Rugby Canada:
Canada women’s sevens star Mandy Marchak took the time to send us this blog entry about her team’s last few days in camp, prior to their departure for Hong Kong. The ladies arrive in Hong Kong today, in preparation for their defense of the IRB Sevens Challenge Cup.
It’s been a really amazing 66 days into our program, here at the Rugby Canada Centre of Excellence in Langford, B.C. On Friday March 16th, we reached the half-way mark in our program. We celebrated the day with a hike up Mount Finlayson, followed by a lunch at Jack’s up Bear Mountain. It was the perfect day, we can all agree with that.
The day started off with meeting the coaches for an activation session, at Goude field. Now, not only do we have an amazing team, but we definitely have personality. The personality of the day awards go to Andrea Burk and Barbara Mervin, who showed up in their Friday best. Andrea Burk looking like she had just parked her skies, strolled onto the field in her very dated two-toned fuchsia and purple wind breaker; dressed with a head band and tights. Barbara Mervin graced us with her presence wearing a very flattering blue with yellow trim and print track suit; worn by the Kazakhstan team at the 2010 World Cup. There was talk at lunch the day before of wearing tight and bright as a theme for our hike, but those two decided to get the day started early, and practice that theme for our activation session.
Defiantly put some light on what started out to be a very rainy and miserable morning!
After the activation we had a video session in the board room. The video session was followed by a compilation of a lot of our successes in the past year. We will be looking for our sixth straight major tournament win, this year in Hong Kong.
It was a great compilation video made by Coach Sandro. He did a very good job and we truly appreciated that.
For those of you who may not know Mike Chu, he is the new High Performance Director for Rugby Canada. He joined us at the end of our video session to say a few words. You can often find Mike coming around to lunch or a training session asking “how you are doing? Are you enjoying everything? Is there anything we can help you with?” Mike is a very genuine person and we are all very pleased to have him with us; sharing his vast knowledge and driving us forward. Your kind words sending us off to Hong Kong were greatly appreciated by all. Thanks Mike!
Meeting adjourned, and we were off; all wearing tight and bright. Well most of us!
We were coming to the end of a tough week physically and mentally. We had done testing the day before. Thinking that what they had organized for us was a nice chilled hike up Mt Finlayson, we were all pretty stoked.
Then…it began!
We all started as a group, chatting away, sharing stories, laughing. Not far into it we started to slowly pull apart and become silent. I know I found myself taking every chance I could to appreciate the beauty, a great excuse for a breather! I think there was a lot of mental talk going on. I don’t think anyone really wanted to vocalize how they were really feeling, for fear that they might come off as the weakest link.
After a while, you could hear people saying “my calves are burning” or “I won’t be able to walk tomorrow”. I can’t decide what on my body was going to be the most sore. Aside from all those thoughts we made it up the Mountain!
After a long week, we all welcomed each other, one by one, with smiles on our faces, to the top of Mount Finlayson! Up at the top we took a quick minute to take some pictures and take in all that mother nature had to offer us.
As our Coach John Tait lined us up to take a picture, someone shouted “BEAR”! We all turned to discover someone in a Gorilla suit trying to scare us. It turned out to be Canadian rugby legend Morgan Williams, who had made it up the Mountain ahead of us, and was lying in wait.
It has been a really great 66 days. We have all taken on this challenge and embraced it. This hasn’t been easy in the slightest, but it was a process we are all willing to buy into.
I’m very proud to be a part of something so special.
Canada on three!…. 1,2,3 CANADA!
Mandy Marchak’s blog can be found @: www.mandymarchak.blogspot.com
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