I’m writing this blog from our Training Camp in Warm Springs Georgia. This is the 5th time we are coming to Warm Springs before Christmas and it has become a tradition every year. We are using this time to get an intense training block in before we head into a recovery week over Christmas.

Warm Springs is a small town about 1.5 hours south of Atlanta. The Rosevelt Centre was the staging camp for the 1996 Paralympic Games and all the Facilities are fully accessible. Every year we book a Camp Lodge that has 12 individual Rooms which lead to a Common Room with a Fire Place and TV.

The internet is slow but that is okay and forces us to stay offline more often and talk to each other. We generally train twice a day and take a little trip to Atlanta halfway through the camp. We have 3 meals a day that are catered to us and we provide the cater company with a meal plan that was developed by our nutritionist at the Sport Centre.

It’s at those meals were we often sit and chat not just wheelchair racing but many other aspects in life. It’s were people open up about family and friends and experiences they had in the past.

Having the opportunity to be with the athletes for an extended time gives me a real good chance to develop deeper relationships and getting to know the athletes better. I have one on one meetings and we spend hours planning the season and brainstorming ideas for workouts and equipment changes.

Every year I invite other athletes from Canada and different countries. In the past we had athlete form Switzerland, Nigeria and Great Britain. This year we have a visiting Athlete from the USA and her coach. The athlete and her coach are fairly new to the sport and they get to learn a lot at our camp.

I truly enjoy sharing our training plans and experience with those athletes and coaches and through dialog there are always new things that challenge my views on training and coaching and often I learn things that I would of not learned if it was just our group at the camp.

Once we return to Canada we have a deeper bond due to all the experiences we went through and often this carries momentum through the winter preparation months which can be very hard on all of us but knowing the athletes and their personalities helps me better understand on how to keep them motivated and be understanding of the challenges they might face.