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Wrestling season is over, I’m sad I don’t get to step on the mats again till October

I know I’ll be ready to step back on the mats in October for the start of the next wrestling season
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Have some thoughts about my thoughts? Email editor@northislandgazette.com

Wednesday, March 8 was the last high school wrestling practice of the season.

I’ve been trying to think of some words to describe how the season went overall, but let’s just say that it was an eventful one full of ups and downs, highlights and memories that I’ll never forget.

I’ve been coaching wrestling at Port Hardy Secondary School since 2019-2020 and I think this might have been my favourite year so far. PHSS Athletic Director Paul Cagna came on board in November to help out with structuring the season, student recruitment, as well as all the travelling to the tournaments down island. He also jumped feet first into training, learning the techniques and the rules of the sport.

Speaking of rules, we quickly made the decision to focus solely on freestyle wrestling this year so we’d be ready to compete, and I have to say that it actually worked out great for us.

Our competition team turned in some strong results, won a few medals, and we just had a lot of fun training on the good ol’ dusty and ancient PHSS wrestling mats.

As for me personally as an athlete, this season was a bit of a struggle.

The COVID-19 pandemic had turned me into a seriously fat couch potato, so I spent the first half of the season just trying to get back into wrestling shape. I actually started the season in October at a ridiculously heavy 190 lbs, and while I have to admit the extra weight helped me compete with the heavyweights on the team, it also made me feel like my cardio was off and I couldn’t get through a full six minute match without thinking I was about to have a heart attack.

It wasn’t until late January that I finally started to find my rhythm again on the mats. That was when the weight started to come off like it was nothing and my speed and cardio dramatically increased.

If you’re curious what I did to fix the issue, I started going to practices on an empty stomach and trained in a fasted state. Then when I went home I ate a high protein diet with very low carbs.

It worked wonders. This morning (Friday, March 10), I weighed in at 167 lbs. If my math is correct, that’s a total of 23 lbs I’ve lost, which is crazy to think about because it really didn’t take that much time for me to achieve.

On the flipside, I also substained a few nagging injuries over the season, none that were bad enough to stop me from getting on the mats, but still they were annoying enough that I couldn’t ignore them.

Injuries are a part of contact sports, and you’ll generally get a few good ones over the course of your athletic career.

This season I suffered three injuries worth documenting, which isn’t that big of a number if you think about how much time I actually spent training.

I hurt my shoulder during a sprawl drill, my kneecap popped out and then went back in when I was wrestling Raymond, but the worst one was when I thought I tore my hamstring near the end of a competitive match with Rylan. Luckily I didn’t tear the muscle, but it still hurts to this day. That’s just the price you pay, I guess!

Enough about my health. I’ll end this by saying I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished, and I know I’ll be ready to step back on the mats in October for the start of the next wrestling season.

Cagna and I will be there, and hopefully so will the students.

Tyson Whitney is an award-winning journalist who was born and raised in Port Hardy. His family has lived in Port Hardy for more than 40 years. He graduated with a degree in writing from Vancouver Island University in 2008. Email: editor@northislandgazette.com


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Tyson Whitney

About the Author: Tyson Whitney

I have been working in the community newspaper business for nearly a decade, all of those years with Black Press Media.
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