I work as a freelance artist and find that not only does my schedule fluctuate, but my income does, too. In August of 2022, a colleague and friend mentioned that they had started working out with a personal trainer, and the gym offered a sliding fee scale, “Pay How You Feel’. I was intrigued. I never thought having a personal trainer was something I could have in my life.

A few months later, I finally contacted Tony and told him I was interested in learning more about F.R.E.E. Fitness. I had been very active in the past with yoga, biking, and hiking. In recent years it seemed that I was always recovering from an injury or some “aches and pain,” so I never really committed to any regular routine.

It’s been a full year that I’ve been training with Hailey Doucette, and she has been incredible. She can schedule around my erratic work calendar, find exercises that don’t exacerbate my aches & pains, and always has such a positive outlook in life.

This past August, the benefits of having a coach became apparent while working on a show at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. The Fringe gives each group 15 minutes to set up before the audience comes in and 15 minutes to clear the set after the show. We had done one performance, and things had gone well. However, for our second performance during the 15-minute setup, we realized that the set had pretty much fallen apart. If we wanted more than just a black curtain for the performance, we needed to find something to prop up the “16-foot pole” that held the multi-coloured drapes. The 15 minutes had started on the clock, and the audience would be coming into the theatre in a matter of minutes. I knew there was a fix, but it meant sprinting across the Fringe grounds, down 2 flights of stairs and carrying two large and heavy wooden backdrops back up the stairs across the Fringe grounds and back to our venue. I spotted another Fringe artist walking by and quickly enlisted him to “help me move something.”

Somehow, we managed to maneuver through the crowd, grab the heavy backdrops, find our way back through the crowd, set up the new backdrop and open the doors for the audience. It was only a few minutes, but it felt like a super intense circuit workout that I crushed thanks to working with Hailey.

Without the help of Hailey and the training she puts me through (farmer carries, deadlifts, sled pushes and squats), there was no way I would have been able to save the set and the show.

Thank you, Hailey!