A season ago, as Zach Werenski rewrote the CBJ record books, he truly went the distance.

According to NHL Edge statistics, the Blue Jackets defenseman skated 320.25 miles – the equivalent of more than 12 marathons – over the course of the 2024-25 season, covering that ground in 2,166 minutes and 22 seconds. He led the league in both categories, outpacing Colorado’s Cale Makar by more than 16 miles and 100 minutes of ice time.

Yet throughout the season, when the Norris Trophy runner-up was asked, the answer was simple – no, he wasn’t tired.

Part of it is a mental battle – fatigue is just as much a state of mind as a physical condition, and if a professional athlete allows himself to believe he’s tired, it’s an excuse that can corrode their play in an instant.

But another reason why Werenski insisted he wasn’t tired is that, simply, he felt his legs had a lot more juice in his ninth NHL season than ever before. Sure, there were days – the second of a back-to-back in a different time zone, when a bug inevitably wound its way through the dressing room – where he was less than 100 percent, but those situations paled in comparison to what Werenski had felt in previous seasons.

“I think for a full year, it was by far the best I felt consistently night in and night out,” Werenski said. “I felt like even days I was a little bit tired, I felt like I had extra juice in the tank to push through and play my game.

“I think that’s a credit to this summer training. We do a lot in here, whether it’s weightlifting, bike rides, long skates. We’re here for five or six hours a day. I think I could always dig deep and find some energy, and I think it starts right here.”

Right here is the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich. Nestled in suburban Detroit off a highway, the home of evening drive-in movies in its expansive parking lot, the venue is not just the where the national junior teams play but also a summer destination for one of the best collections of hockey talent in the world.

Players with ties to the area, USA Hockey and the University of Michigan – Werenski can check off all three boxes – call southeastern Michigan their summer base, pushing each other to get ready for the upcoming season. When BlueJackets.com visited earlier this month, Werenski was in the midst of tuning up his workouts to prepare him for the start of CBJ training camp in mid-September and the start of the season in October.

A group of players ranging from Werenski and teammate Adam Fantilli to the Hughes brothers to Michigan products Kyle Connor and Dylan Larkin to former Team USA standouts Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield push each other through the summer months.

As iron sharpened iron an offseason ago, Werenski built the stamina and physical base that allowed him to become just the ninth NHL blueliner since 1996-97 to top the 80-point barrier while setting CBJ defenseman records in just about every statistical category.

“I think it starts with summer training, the group we have,” Werenski said. “I think you guys saw today how hard we work here all summer. I think also when you have guys as good as we have do here, you just push each other to be better. I think the skates, the intensity gets ramped up automatically.

“There’s no place I’d rather be in the summer to get better as a hockey player than here. I think it’s arguably the best group in the world and a big reason why I had the success that I had last year.”

And as Werenski has gotten older (he turned 28 in July), he’s also dialed in what it means to get in shape during an offseason. He’s no longer a 19-year-old getting ready for his first NHL season, one in which he burst onto the scene in 2016-17 to become a finalist for the Calder Trophy and make the league’s all-rookie team.

As time has gone on, routines and training partners have changed, but Werenski feels like he’s learned what specifically to work on to be ready to carry a heavy load during the season.

“I think I know exactly what I need right now,” Werenski said. “I definitely think I grind harder in the gym earlier in the summer to build a base. I think (as) I’ve built my program, it’s like I put my body under the perfect amount of stress early in the summer. Then as the summer goes on, it’s more about maintaining, getting ready for the ice, feeling good, getting my hips, my groins, hamstrings (ready) so I have no soft tissue injuries.

“There’s some things you can’t avoid injury-wise – I know a lot about that – but there’s certain things you can avoid and that’s the soft tissue stuff – the hip flexors, the groins. August is a lot of maintenance. You’re still obviously lifting weights, but I feel like it’s the perfect program to when training camp starts, when the season starts, I am where I want to be.”

If he ever needs motivation to keep the work going, he doesn’t have to look far to find it. Every time he steps on the ice in Plymouth, he’s competing against some of the best players in the world, and an off day means you’re likely going to end up looking silly – just like in an NHL contest.

“You go into three-on-three in the battle drills, if you’re not focused and you’re not dialed in, you’re going to be embarrassed by these guys,” Werenski said. “You’re going to be embarrassed by Jack and by Cole. You automatically get pushed to be better. Even if you’re not feeling it and you’re tired, it teaches you to play when you’re not feeling your best.”

In many ways, that’s what separates the good players from the great, and there’s little arguing that Werenski was consistently great a season ago. He skated at least 25 minutes in 61 of the 81 games he played, notched at least a point in 52 contests and had multipoint games in 22 games.

In addition to cementing himself as a key part of the U.S. National Team – with whom he won the country’s first gold medal at the World Championships since 1933 this summer – he helped vault the Blue Jackets into the playoff conversation a year ago.

“It was an exciting year for me,” Werenski said. “The best part of the year was getting married. That’s a day I’ll always remember. But along the way, you play at the World Championships, you play the 4 Nations, we had a great season with Columbus. We fell just short of the playoffs, but we grew there. Everything, you can take positives away from and learn from them and be a better player and a better person.

“It’s a year I’ll always remember and try to build on. It definitely gives me a lot of confidence moving forward here, and I want to continue to be that player and just continue to get better.”

So what can he do for an encore? If the work he put in this summer is any indication, the sky is the limit.