That time of year... May 4, 2010

The smell of football is in the air here in Canada. Hockey is winding down, spring is springing, and sure enough the CFL training camps are scheduled to open in less than 40 days assuming that the Players association and the CFL can reach an agreement by then. I really hope that they can get something done personally, because I’m going to need to unleash all of this training on someone soon.

Much is changing around us these days, I recently ran the high school portion of my Playmaker U camp series at Clarke Field and really got a sense of how different the complexion of our organization will be by year’s end with all of the construction and changes going on to the Stadium itself. It’s quite exciting to see in person and makes you as a player want to be around to utilize these new facilities and be a part of this excitement as long as you can. Not to mention they will certainly make us even more the envy of the other teams in the league, and it’s always nice to be envied.

I’ve had an extremely busy offseason in a number of ways, and as a result have stepped away from typing out my thoughts as much this year as opposed to others. It’s certainly not deliberate, but I really had many things pressing that needed tending to before I could bring myself to keep this journal. Still some doing to do, but for the most part the hay is in the barn already. A change in training venue to Athletes Nation, a concerted effort to rectify an achilles issue that plagued me all last year, a new addition to my family, and an expansion of my business, all contributed to that hiatus. Truth be told, everything is sitting quite well right now for me so I figured I’d take some time to say hello before the bullets start flying again in a month or so.

This month for me will be more of the same as far as training, I’ve been on 2-a-days since March, which are really 3 days of 3 training sessions, and 3 days of 2 training sessions. I’ll continue that up until the last week of May, at which time I’ll shut off my phone, and laptop in favor of a hammock, good books, golf, and time with my sons. Training camp is scheduled for June 6th for veterans, so the week prior to that will be a true decompression for me. I’m excited to work with Kevin Strasser and Jason Tucker again this year, and excited for them as well knowing that they’ll finally have a whole season to implement their system. I feel like as we sit today, we have all pieces necessary to win this Grey Cup in our backyard this year so I’m anxious to get going and set the season’s tone. It’s odd to look out on the Commonwealth turf and not see the grass anymore though, I did the math and found that 7 out of the 10 best performances that I’ve had in this league occurred on that field - either as an eskimo or not. I have been truly humbled and honored to be able to say that I bled on the same turf as the great Eskimos that played before and with me.

I’m in a good place right now, and that’s saying something. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, as well as faster and healthier than I’ve been in years. This last month, I usually have to resist the urge to do too much, as other players begin to come into town who may not have began their workout regiments as early and feel the need to do a lot in the last month to compensate. I’ll stay the course, and see how it turns out on June 6th. Until then, keep me posted as to how you think things are going both on the team and in the league. Much is changing around us it seems!

Kp8