My Road Season 2017... where has the time gone?!

*So now with finally a bit of downtime, I'm going through some blog posts that I'd meant to finish, but for whatever reason grade 12 exams took priority*

May
3 weeks left of school... 1.5 weeks until Grad... 4 weeks until Road Nationals... AHHH. Where has the time gone?? It feels like just yesterday we had the first road race of the season. I'll try to avoid getting all nostalgic and sappy, so instead I'll do a short recount of the past 3 months.

The travel started in February, when my mom and I flew to LA to go grad dress shopping with my aunt and I also managed to squeeze in a a few training days at the LA Velodrome with ex-Canadian sprint coach, Travis Smith. With Nationals only a month away, it was great to get a few days of concentrated sprint work in!



A few weeks later, I hopped on a plane to Spain to join my European team, Lares-Waowdeals for a week training camp in the sun. I was really nervous going because I was flying to a new country to stay with people whom I'd never really met before! But besides some language barriers, I had an amazing time! The 5 other junior women on my team (3 from Belgium, 2 from the Netherlands) were so nice and set out on a mission to teach me Dutch (not an easy language to learn...). We got to stay in a fancy resort on the water with a bunch of other teams, had a buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner, soigneurs who gave us daily massages and experience incredible riding right from the door! Living the life of a pro, I really didn't want to come home from paradise...




However, the travel bug was kept to a minimum because 3 weeks later it was off to Milton, Ontario for Junior Track Nationals. There, I claimed 8 Gold Medals, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. I also finally hit my long time goal of lapping the field in a Points Race- twice!



Photo credits: Michel Guillemette

Stoked on my achievements and ready for my next challenge, I jetted out immediately after racing ended to the Netherlands for the Nations Cup Junior Healthy Ageing Tour with Lares-Waowdeals. It was such an eye opening, learning experience. 120 girls started the 4 day stage race, and 70 finished. For me, this was a huge game of learning to hold position and move through a pack of that many riders. The last day, I flatted with 10km to go, chased back on, then crashed with 2km to go. However, I still finished the race and ended up 55th.




Had some more local and USA elite stage races, where I was on the podium in every single criterium and road race, with the highlight being winning Elite Provincial Road Championships! My road form has felt better than ever this year, and I'm excited to see what I can do next!





Maggie :)


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