Taking the Bad With the Good

So as amazing as the week of the Torch Relay was, last week leading up to today has been significantly less rosy. A number of issues came up at the same time, each which has repercussions. The first item was that the Canadian Olympic Committee, without notice and just prior to our season beginning advised my NSO that they would not be providing any funding for this season. This means that getting to all the World Cups will now be extremely difficult or just not possible. I decided to call the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee (Chris Rudge) and of Own the Podium (Alex Baumann). Interestingly, I was able to get through to both and each took time to speak with me. Having said that, no real progress was made beyond they more clearly are aware of who I am, and know that I will suffer as a result of this decision. Both explained that money is tight (ultimately the costs of Vancouver explains this), and that the future also looks bleak as resigning sponsors or acquiring new sponsors has not been successful. This is infuriating as our funding suffered in order to shift focus to Vancouver, and now that the "well" will dry up after, there will be little or nothing remaining from the COC or OTP to support us. Somewhat damned either way. The icing on the cake is the reality that the medal payouts in Vancouver will often go to millionaires such as the NHLers - depending on the colour of their medal (which is essentially guaranteed), each athlete will receive $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000. The funding that was rescinded was for $30,000 - a tiny sum, but enough to get a team of us to a couple more World Cups.
Second big item, and more concerning, is that my achilles has been acting up. I've done everything to remedy it, from Athletic Therapy, to ice, Tens, massage, and tomorrow I will see Dr. Lun (the most seasoned of Sports Medicine Doctors). It is recovering slowly, but I can't really afford to lose any time now as the season is right around the corner. And, I'm supposed to race in Winnipeg this weekend. I fenced in Edmonton last weekend, and it went quite poorly. Partially I was physically just not sharp. And partially, I was hesitent to do any explosive movements in case I hurt my achilles further. I don't have a real understanding for the injury yet, and I don't want to take any risks. Perhaps it is good karma that I didn't push it too hard. This is not the time to be tapping the brakes though, it's time to push.
I try to believe that things happen for a reason, so I'm hopeful that both of these difficult situations will ultimately bring something more positive out of them that I can learn from and progress with.
Fingers crossed. Thanks for following.