Ottawa, CANADA – The road race of the Canadian National Championships was held on June 25th in the country’s capital: beautiful and very cycling friendly Ottawa, Ontario. The winner of the maple leaf jersey was to be decided by 10 laps of a 10km flat and technical loop. Race day was brutally hot, but sunny and not too windy. Race temperature was 33°C according to my O_Synce Navi2Coach cycling computer. I liked it.

The road race at Nationals is always a little weird and raced differently than any other race. Everyone wants to be crowned national champion and for some, it doesn't really matter how you win the jersey as long as you win. Sometimes, then, the race is really slow and boring.

Because of the nature of the course and the way nationals are usually raced, a bunch sprint was to be expected. Canada has some world-class sprinters and given that I can't really sprint and I had no teammates (I am the sole-Canadian on Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank), I was willing to get in a breakaway. Moreover, I wasn't going to let any dangerous move go without me being there.

Right from the start I was near the front, following moves, trying to read the race. I might have spent too many bullets trying to cover a lot of moves, but I think it was worth it, because after around 30km, I got into the breakaway that would stick.

Normally, in a breakaway situation, I would have looked at my Verve Infocrank powermeter and used it as a tool to manage the energy in my tank and pace myself. On that day however, I was suffering right from the beginning and I decided to just give it everything that I had and analyze the data later.

Our break started off as four people, then as riders got dropped, we were down to a two-rider group. Annie Foreman-Mackey and I rode together for most of the race. She was really strong and I was suffering. The heat really started to take it’s toll on me but I tried to stay positive. In an effort to motivate myself to hurt even more and hang on until maybe the finish, I started singing in my head: “Just the 2 of us” by Bill Withers.

“Just the two of us. We can make it if we try. Just the two of us...” was great motivation in the moment and people that know me well will know that I've got songs stuck in my head while riding, a lot. It helps me focus and I've had some of my best days on the bike when I was able to just stay calm, breath and sing a verse or two of the same song over and over again for multiple hours.

And so I sang. But at some point it seemed like the voice of Bill Withers wasn't enough. I was hurting everywhere and I had been for a while now. My thoughts got more chaotic and all I could think of was pain, pain, pain. It was then that I dropped from Annie's wheel. When I did, there was no turning back. I was mentally and physically cracked. Soon, the peloton caught up to me. I tried to hang on, but I had nothing left and just the thought of having dropped from the winning move and losing the chance of a gold or silver medal destroyed me. I would end up finishing 36th, more than 7 minutes back and Annie, my breakaway partner, would end up wearing the maple leaf jersey. What a ride!

Afterwards, I had mixed emotions. I was really happy for Annie, of course, but to be honest, I was also really sad and mad. I was just so disappointed to have come so close and to have lost it. And it was totally my fault. Nobody had crashed me nor did I get a mechanical or a flat... Good thing is: I learned a lot and I've got good motivation for the future and there are worse things that happen in the world.

Looking at my Verve Infocrank and O_Synce Navi2Coach files later in the day, (shown above) I was disappointed to see my power wasn't that great. However, I could see why I felt all-out right from the beginning: my average heart rate for the race was 192, my max was 211 and I spent around 1h45 over 202. Now, I know my heart always beats fast, but this was certainly amongst my personal heart rate highs!

I realized then that I had done the best I could on the day. You can’t expect to be feeling like a super-hero at every race. However, every race, no matter how you feel, you have to do your job. If you’re part of a team you do your job, and if you are alone, you need to be one of the smartest. In other words there are no “bad legs” days, and no excuses. You do your job and give your best in the moment, no matter how you feel. That’s something really important to me.

All in all, it was an exciting road race and the winner really deserved it. Personally, it hurts not to come out of it with a result, but I gave my all on the day. I also had a bunch of fun! Being in a long breakaway is such a cool feeling. I love it! And as one of my American teammates told me before the race: "Just have fun. When you have fun, you go faster." Well, I most certainly did have fun and went fast! I'm looking forward to more fun and fast stuff as I head to Europe with my Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank teammates in a couple of weeks for La Route de France.

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