Maggie Coles-Lyster

On another flight home from my third World Championship this year, and bored with homework so time for a little blogging :)! In January, I competed in the U23 Cyclocross World Champs in Zolder, Belgium, then I won a bronze medal at the Junior Track World Champs in Aigle, Switzerland in July, and I am now returning from competing in the Junior Road World Champs in Doha Qatar. It's been a busy year! "It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll!" After receiving the confirmation that I was going to Road Worlds just over 2 weeks before I left, I quickly had to organise my next month. I was only back at school for about a week before I flew out, and have been gone for almost a month! Before heading to Qatar, the junior women squad spent 2 weeks in Belgium, training and racing. The four junior women who were selected were the same girls who went to Junior Track Worlds- Erin Attwell, Devaney Collier, Laurie Jussaume and me, of course! This made i...

5 weeks away from home, 3 different beds, 3 crashes, National and World class racing, 12 amazing teammates and probably most impressively, a bronze medal in the women’s omnium at Junior Track World Championships! After Nationals, me, Erin, Cam Fitzmaurice and John Willcox piled into a car with our bikes and drove 5 hours to Milton, Ontario, where the next 2 weeks were spent training at the 250m velodrome. The training was intense, with usually two sessions a day and included some longer road rides to keep the endurance up. As well, we did lots of team pursuit work on the track to get me, Erin, Ali Vanyzendoorn, Devaney Collier and Laurie Jussaume up to speed as the first Junior Women’s team pursuit team Canada has sent to Worlds in around 4 years. We grew very close over the total of 4 weeks that we lived together, and had a blast building our relationship as teammates and friends, as not many of us knew each other too well before this. Card playing, nail painting, baking and a trip...

5 weeks away from home, 3 different beds, 3 crashes, National and World class racing, 12 amazing teammates and probably most impressively, a bronze medal in the women’s omnium at Junior Track World Championships! My amazing adventure started June 21st, with the last day of grade 11. The final bell rang and I raced out of there to go pack my bikes at home in preparation for my red-eye flight that night. I also was asked to go talk at a coaches and teachers conference, that afternoon, about my bike racing and how to inspire school kids to do sports and be competitive. I had planned out my day accordingly to make my transition onto Ontario’s time zone as smooth as possible- which included eating an early dinner, then sleeping right away on the plane. When we landed in the morning, I had a quick breakfast and my classic decaf mocha, then drove to Gatineau, Quebec to Philemon Wright Secondary School, where I was set to take Science Humaines 11 (social studies) provincial exam, because ...

With post race depression already setting in, I thought it would be best to take a break from my homework and use the plane time to write up a blog about this past weekend! I have been so stocked ever since last years Junior track Nationals in October, where I found out that they were going to host another track Nationals/Worlds qualifiers 6 months later! So back to Milton, Ontario I went last week (March 28th) to ride the glorious 250m velodrome. Leading up to track Nationals, our focus was on recovery. After having finished my Cyclocross season with the World Championships in Belgium at the end of January, I took a bit of time off, but then it was right back on the bike to start my prep for Nationals. I found that I would get a lactic acid flow happening in my legs almost everytime I got on my bike, so we set out to find ways of getting rid of that. Massage, eating and drinking properly, hot and cold showers as well as compression and recovery creams were part of my daily rout...

A little late, but here we go! Racing in Belgium was highly addictive, and I can’t wait until I get another chance to go back and give it another shot! After the Hoogerheide World Cup cross race, team Canada spent the week training, getting massages (!) and resting up for the big race- the Zolder Cyclocross World Championships! The race took place in, around and over a car race track, which made for some fun fast road sections, and great spectating!  I was shocked when I first saw the course- the Zolder races that I had watched online were a great deception, as I thought it was more or less a flat course. But nope. Over half of the course took place on the side of a hill, so there were lots of ups and downs. I found it incredibly fun when I first got to ride it, on one of our pre-ride days, as there were three flyovers, some steep decents and a super steep run up, that made you feel like a monkey as you ran up it, because at points you would be using your hands to help you sta...

Hello! So I am in Belgium, 3 days out of the World Championships! Sunday, I raced my first World Cup Cyclocross race in Hoogerheide, Holland and it was quite the experience! It was one of the muddiest, slipperiest, most unforgiving and taxing courses I have ever raced. Some of the straight aways were so muddy that you couldn't ride them! There was also a killer 42 stair run up... ouch! I raced Elite Women (there was no u23 category) and despite having very few UCI points and getting one of the last call ups, I had a great start! I used running to my advantage around the first muddy section where everything backed up, and passed quite a few people! On the first steep descent, someone braked hard in front of me and I kind of ran into a tree (oops). I crashed and dropped my chain which kind of sucked, but hey, it got me on TV! Catching up was tricky, since everyone had passed me. However, I had finally caught up whennn I crashed again and was furthermore pulled from the race going i...