Two years have passed since Heather Moyse was last on a rugby field, but having won Olympic bobsleigh gold in February she has now turned her attention to making Canada's squad for Women's Rugby World Cup 2010.
Total Rugby Radio caught up Moyse at the recent Canadian women's training camp to find out how she's finding the transition and the off field discussions with coaches and Rugby Canada's High Performance Director to facilitate her return.
The dialogue [about returning to rugby] started last year. At the start of the season I had come off of the bobsled season which had been, I won't say sketchy, but it was still like the rehabbing my shoulder season and my shoulder wasn't 100 percent.
I was in a bit of a panic thinking that I needed to play last summer, that I needed to play something last summer in order to still be even considered for the World Cup team.
The head coach and I had this long conversation and he said I don't think that is going to benefit you in the long term for rugby for World Cup season and I don't think it is going to benefit your goals that you have for bobsledding, so he told me not to compete last summer.
He said that the coaches had talked to the High Performance Director, it had been a big topic in Rugby Canada to make sure that it was I guess an informed and quality decision as opposed to just a random doing a favour kind of thing.
I was a little concerned, I said that would be two years that I won't have played, he said yes but that will give us five months to get you where you want to be or see if we can get you where you want to be and that should be enough.
Heather Moyse - On winning Bobsleigh Olympic Gold >> (6:40)Heather Moyse - On returning to Canada's Rugby team >> (3:20)
For me, right now, the dialogue has just been that they are happy to have me back, but they are happy to have me back knowing that I am not where the other girls are right now, knowing that it is going to be a long road ahead.
I am fully aware that it is not a guarantee to get on the World Cup team. I came back to girls, even girls that I played with before have improved so much over the last two years since I have been gone and there are new, younger girls who are coming on board and it is always great to have young girls on World Cup teams because hopefully they will be around for following World Cups.
I could start focusing right now on how nervous I am, how anxious I am to be back on this team, which I am at this point as it is only early days, but instead I just have to trust the process, I have to trust my abilities that I know I still have that are maybe buried a little bit but that are still here from before. I have to trust the rehab in my shoulder, there is a lot of trust that you have to put in coaches and people who have rehabbed me.
Yes it can be stressful but it is just a matter of staying focused and if I end up not making this World Cup team it is because the girls are so good, there is such a good selection of girls here and maybe just me being here this summer at least will help push some of the other girls.
It is a matter of complacency and there is no complacency here.
Different levels of endurance
In terms of making the transition from bobsleigh to rugby, I think that there are aspects of each sport that complement the other.
I think that the lifting training that I did for bobsledding this past season will be a huge benefit for me going into this rugby season and in terms of strength and speed I think they are pretty much on par in terms of for training.
It is the endurance factor that is a huge difficulty for me, as a pure sprinter even jogging is just painful the thought of jogging. That cardio, sprinting interval training, is really what I need in terms of transitioning over.
My endurance right now is for six seconds, six seconds of power, speed and give it everything for that time and for rugby it might be six seconds, but it is six seconds over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until you get to 80 minutes.
That is going to be the biggest challenge in terms of my game fitness, just being here at the national training camp, even for just a few days so far, you can tell that the programme has advanced, it has gone a lot further and for me it has been two years since I have played, stopping after I broke my shoulder.
It is hard, it is not just coming back to where I was before, it is now coming back and having to go further and stretching myself further than where I was even before I left and the programme has somewhat changed philosophies and changed theories so it is going to be a really big transition for me.
In part three, Moyse assesses Canada's chances at Women's Rugby World Cup 2010, which takes place in England from 20 August to 5 September.
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