LONDON – Canadian triathlete Kathy Tremblay has a lot to be stressed about.
While the elite athlete from Montreal, Quebec, has competed in an Olympics before — she takes to the water and land here on Saturday for the triathlon — two weeks after competing, she’s marrying her coach David-James Tache.
Tremblay says she has a secret habit of dealing with tense situations — especially during the long swimming, biking and running elements of her sport.
She repeats ‘cue words’ as she moves along, almost putting herself in a state of moving meditation.
She won’t say what these words are but tells me: “They hypnotize, because you don’t think (during a race), you just do.”
She says she has no time to stop and smell the flowers or enjoy the taste of a bottle of fluid, as her muscles go into memory-repeat. The words do the same for her mind.
I ask her if there’s any advice she can give more physically average people on how to deal with stress.
“This will be cheesy,” she quickly says. “But the secret is to be happy — with the things that you do and the people you surround yourself with.”
After appearing in Beijing, Kathy says she was not happy, but made changes in coaching and her life that have uplifted her.
She’ll prove that soon.
Hopefully on Saturday.
But certainly in a few short weeks when she becomes a bride.
