Train hard, recover well, and dream big!
In 2012 I had a devastating crash during the Canadian National Road Cycling Championship that left me on the road, unconscious for over a minute. Unaware that I had even blacked out, I only recall jumping back on my bike hoping to could get a draft off of a team car. I wanted to catch up to the peloton that was a lot further ahead than I thought by that time. It didn’t take me many pedal strokes to realize that something was a bit wonky in my head. I had a nasty concussion. An ambulance ended up rushing me to the hospital.
Fully healed, I am in the process of preparing for the Canadian National Road Cycling Championships again. This edition will be held in St. Georges, Beauce, Québec from June 20-23. The National Championships are a big deal. One race decides who will be the Champion of Canada, and have the privilege of sporting the Maple Leaf on their back for an entire year.
Leading into this event, I have been competing with my team, NOW and Novartis for MS at races across the USA, and with the Canadian National Team in Gatineau, Canada. Also, I recently had the opportunity to do a BikeMS ride in association with my team, to raise awareness for MS. It was totally different from racing, but such a rewarding and enriching experience.
I have been spending a good amount of time doing intervals and rides on the roads of Québec on my Specialized bicycles. I also do some specific work indoors at the PowerWatts Premier Studio in Montréal, Québec. My coach provides me with a plan that is easy to follow, and that I believe in. Having confidence in a training plan is something that an athlete cannot even attribute a dollar value to. I feel really fortunate have the chance to work with a coach whose expertise is both motivating and gives me a great deal of peace of mind.
Just as it is important to give 100% on hard training days, it’s also important to give 100% on rest days, to let my body fully recover. (Which sounds easier than it is!) After a hard 3 week block of training, I took some time to recover, relax, and hang out in Montréal to do things like visit a wax museum. I got a photo with an athlete who I’ve admired for a long, long time. Ok, it was a wax replica of Terry Fox, but I was almost as excited as I would have been had it been the real Terry.
After Nationals, I’ll be looking forward to heading to the West Coast of Canada for the first time in 3 years to race B.C. Superweek. The Gastown GP in Vancouver is a race that I am particularly excited about!
Train hard, recover well, and dream big!
