The Pursuit

*Cue Staples commercials on TV to the tune of ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’

I’ve been at UVic all summer working in CARSA and getting to have the run of the place, getting to know the secrets, the ins and the outs, the people, and how things are going to work going into the school year.

It’s been a pretty great time, I must say. Living the life training and working, winning a regional Title with Vancouver Island, winning the Western Championships with BC, getting my first cap against New Zealand for the Senior Women’s National Rugby team, exploring Victoria and relaxing where I can.

But that honeymoon period is over and here I am sitting at school a month into the swing of things. I completely meant to finish this blog post a solid month ago but taking classes, working at CARSA, training and practicing tend to take up my days, so I’m just getting around to it now.

Oops.

The team post 1600m test with a run up Mount Tolmie.

That’s what school does to you, folks. It consumes you and your time, and before you know it, it’s almost the middle of October.

Being a member of the women’s rugby team, pre-season this year was a whole other level compared to past years. Over the summer we kept each other accountable to our training via a Google Docs spreadsheet where we recorded our fitness goals and hours we spent training.

Combined, the team has easily spent over 2000 hours watching games, doing weights, speed sessions, conditioning, practicing and playing over the summer. Rolling into camp it was apparent how much those hours have paid off with girls reaching and surpassing goals while breaking down walls.

Everyone wants to be successful this season more than ever. Everyone’s bought in, letting the idea of being a National Champ sink in. We believe. I believe. It’s the pursuit.

After a four day camp, we headed to Alberta on a bus trip where we spent over 40 hours traveling from Victoria to Edmonton to Calgary and back in 7 days. To say the least, we became quite close on the bus – there’s really no way we couldn’t have. Overall the trip produced some pretty fun moments and laughs to carry us through the season ahead.

Happiness = Ice Cream

The ferry ride home.

I can’t tell you what’s going on here…

It’s now the middle of the Women’s Rugby CIS season and it’s been one of the most successful starts for the Vikes Women’s team yet.

Despite the grueling game schedule, we’ve played some incredible rugby over the past two weeks beating Lethbridge 40-22 and UBC 28-10 with one loss to a very good Calgary side 27-10.

In fact, we’ve qualified for the Canada West Final Four in Edmonton where we will end up playing three full 80-minute rugby games in the span of seven days. Absolutely brutal on the body!

The team had a few days off over the Thanksgiving weekend before we look to take on Alberta October 18th at 11:30 Wallace Field, in a battle for 2/3rd place in Canada West!

Here’s to an exciting rest of the season waiting to unfold, and the goal of becoming the first UVic Rugby team to qualify for the CIS National Championships in Kingston.

“Nobody said it would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”