How far are you willing to travel to reach your goals?
24 Jul 2008
By Paul Vaillancourt
The Long Road to strength
How far are you willing to travel to become one of the “strong ones”?
What are you willing to sacrifice to taste greatness?
I feel pretty fortunate to be in my current situation. My wife and I own 2 gyms and I have a great crew of guys to train with on a regular basis. My training partners and I also have a fully equipped strongman facility that allows us to train year round. (Strongman events during the winter is tough here in Canada.) Our core group has been experiencing great progress over the last year. I’m pretty much as close as you can get to living at the gym and being able to train whenever it suits me.
But that is not enough.
Becoming a big fish in a little pond is a dead-end to progress.
On the journey to great strength, many miles must be traveled. I remember the first time I read about Matt Rhodes having to drive 2 hours to train and thinking, “Hey, I do that too”.
Before I owned my first gym, I used to drive 1hr just to train in a commercial type gym. When I first got into competing in strongman I would often drive over 2 hours to train events with a group of guys that knew more about it than I did. Traveling to the equipment is the first step, but now I have all the equipment and travel to where the “strong ones” are. I travel to the people that know what I want to know, and that can do things that I want to do.
The first time I made a long trip for competition was in 2005. I drove 9 hours from Renfrew Ontario, to New Haven, CT to compete in a strongman comp. I drove 9 long hours, got my arse kicked and traveled home sick as a dog, puking out the car window all the way. But this trip was very important lesson to my success. I learned that I wasn’t anywhere near as good as I thought, and it got me completely focused on kicking ass in strongman.
(Although the trip to New Haven was pretty long, it should be noted that travel time to 99% of the comps I’ve competed in was a minimum of 2 hrs)
Another long, but very productive trip was our trip to the Defranco Seminar last July. I’ve already outlined the details of why this was an important trip, in my “What I learned at the Defranco Seminar” article. I feel this was the first big step in the direction of traveling to find success. We didn’t care how far, or how long, we just wanted to learn and get better.
Well we, learned, we made good contacts, and most of all got motivated to take action. (The Defranco Training Facility is a pretty motivating place.)
There are a lot of great powerlifting meets in the province of Ontario. The catch is that they are all a minimum of 6 hours away from where I live. No big deal, my wife competes too, so it’s a family trip that we both enjoy. Just make sure you get a separate hotel room if your handler snores like a diesel engine. I traveled 6hrs to bomb out in the bench, but again, I had fun, made good contacts and learned a lot.
During the cold and snowy months of the past winter, despite having a heated indoor training spot for events, I felt it necessary to take a trip to Montreal (3 hrs) to train with a few guys that we don’t get to see much during the winter. Although the place we were training was crammed into a tiny garage and we even had to do our farmer’s walks outside, I still had a standout training session. This was a case of just needing to be in a different place with different training partners. A break from the norm. I plan on making this a regular occurrence this winter.
This past April, during the first Strongman competition of the season, (luckily for me was only 1hr away) I was hanging out with a fellow competitor that had driven 10hrs to this particular comp despite knowing he wasn’t ready for it, and it had fairly small cash prizes. He told me that it doesn’t matter how much money is on the line, he just loves to compete, and traveling long distances is part of the game. That same guy has been traveling a minimum of 12hrs almost every weekend to compete on the 2008 Quebec Pro Cup. (The premier strongman circuit in Canada) His dedication to his sport is paying off. He’s having the best season of his career.
To further my education in strength, I barely batted an eye when it came time to pack up the car and drive 12hrs to none other that the EFS Compound to attend the VIP seminar in London Ohio. This trip was a phenomenal experience. Again, we learned, made good contacts, got really motivated to succeed and as a bonus I smashed the prowler challenge and brought home a prowler. (Which has become a huge tool for my competitive success. Thanks again Dave and Jim) This trip was also learning experience in travel. I will now fly whenever possible, if the trip is longer than 8hrs. I will also never rent the smallest economy car for a long trip. The fuel savings doesn’t make up for the 2 weeks of low back and hip pain.
My willingness to travel any distance is starting to payoff. I traveled 12hrs this past June, to the Ontario’s strongest Man Competition and finished in second place. The second place finish has earned me a spot at the Canadian Strongman Championship which I am very proud to be competing in. It’s a big step up the strongman ladder for a guy like me to be at the Canadian Qualifier for the World’s Strongest Man. Of course the trip to CSM in Quebec City is only 5hrs. And to top off a great summer of traveling, I’ll also be traveling across the country to the 105kg strongman nationals in British Colombia, but not to worry. I’m flying.
It would be uncharacteristic for me to have an eloquent conclusion, so I’ll just put it out there plain and simple.
Traveling to the places and the people that will help you improve is a good investment in your success. Sometimes just a change of scenery can pay big dividends. Every time I’ve taken a trip related to strength, it’s put me closer to my goals.
Don’t become the big fish in a little pond.
Paul Vaillancourt is the co-owner of UltimateFitnessGyms.com with his wife Sarah. They train both athletes (mostly hockey players, eh) and the general public in Renfrew and Arnprior Ontario Canada. And he’s starting to get “okay” at strongman competitions.
Paul Vaillancourt
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