by Maghalie Rochette

It’s been a while since I have not written anything here. I guess there aren’t many cool riding stories to tell when you are injured and not riding.

But it turns out slowing down allows time for thinking…and although they are not 100% specifically related to riding stories, I think many of these thoughts have something to do with cycling, so I thought I’d share.

When I was young, I used to be a triathlete until I was around 18 years old. Back then I had torn my fascia and tendon under my foot, which resulted in multiple stress fractures on that same foot, preventing me from training on the run as much as I would like. This ended up being a serendipitous situation. On the one hand it forced me to step away from triathlon for a while and reconsider my athletic choices…but on the other hand, it allowed me to discover I really loved cycling and that perhaps I could put my efforts on the bike. Who knows if I’d had become a pro cyclist without this injury?!

As anything in life, there are always two sides to a situation, and as much as I struggled at the time of this injury when I was 18 years old, what followed brought me so many wonderful things and experiences!

And things are not different this time!

I’ve been off the bike for over a month. I’m doing well! My injury is not huge, but it had been bothering me for over a year. For the longest time I was just enduring this back pain, thinking I was probably stiff or sore, or simply getting old. I doubled down on massage, strength, osteo, treatments, but never treated it as a true injury. I didn't think it was one, and maybe I didn't want it to be one. As time went by, the pain got worse, but still manageable. Once in a while my back would fully seize, but then it’d get better. But this Spring I was struggling. The pain in my back was really taking the joy of riding from me. At first I thought I was loosing my love of the sport, which was both scary and hard to understand after having had so much fun the last CX season. But then I realized it was all rooted in the back pain; every time I’d get on a bike, it would really hurt, to the point when my brain associated riding my bike with a pain, and then I didn’t want to do it anymore. That’s when I decided I needed to treat this as a true injury, and fully investigate what was wrong.

After scans and MRIs and many doctor visits, it became clear that I am, in fact, old. At least my back is! What was causing the pain were 3 herniated discs and facet syndromes between 4 vertebrae in my back. I don’t think this is the end of the world, but it still needed to be addressed.

Anyway, as with anything in life, and as my triathlon injury taught me, there are always two ways to look at a situation. Now that I’m approaching the end of my recovery, I can say that yes, the injury sucked, but I also feel like this injury is the best thing that could have happened to me at this point in time, so I thought I’d share a few things I learned! Things I learned: There is always a positive to a negative
David said: We can see a situation as an excuse or an opportunity. Excuse for why I could not be good this season? Or opportunity to strengthen some old weaknesses, to work on functional fitness & strength, to build a team, to refresh at home, to see family….It turns out the opportunities far out-weighted the excuses!

1. Waiting vs being in the moment: Waiting sucks. When we are “waiting”, technically what we do is that our body is in the now, but our mind is in the future. All this does is it creates a mismatch and a feeling of being powerless and not in control of our situation. When our mind is in the future, it creates stress, anxiety, and a feeling of being impatient. What if instead of “waiting” to feel better, we could fully bring our mind to the present moment? Suddenly, this period of "waiting" (for me, that meant not riding for almost 6 weeks) turned from a scary and disastrous situation, to a wonderful opportunity to reset. When is the last time I had 1 month “free” at home?! Never! First, I focused on doing what I COULD do. It turned out I could run and do strength and I enjoyed seeing some progress in those areas. It kept me active and feeling healthy, without burning any unnecessary matches. Time flew by, I felt productive, and never felt like I was waiting and losing my time. This brings me to the next point…

2. The injury conundrum: Rest vs gains — Injuries can be draining physically and mentally. It’s weird because on the one hand you are forced to rest, which should be refreshing. But with our athletes’ minds of always wanting to improve and never wanting to slow down, it’s often the case that we get out of an injury more drained and tired than before…People suggested I ride the trainer with an upright position on a swiss ball or that I do hill repeats by standing up (and not sitting/bending over on my bike), to make sure I wouldn’t loose any fitness. But I’ve done this mistake before. From my experience, by doing that, we drain our motivation, we do not rest, and don’t give the care to our injury that it needs, and then, when we're healthy and time comes to truly train again, we're fried, or it simply takes longer to heal. Instead, I decided to use this time to chill and fully refresh. I might have chosen a different strategy if this happened at a different time, but right now, this is what I felt was right. And it’s the best thing that could have happened to me! After struggling all Spring, this is the first time that I feel a deep HUNGER to put my 100% into training and racing. I feel energized, healthy, and so happy.

3. Care vs Hustle : This is similar, but with work instead of training. When we knew we’d had a bit over a month off of normal training, I quickly went to my usual modus operandi: “If I can’t ride and race, I’ll work EXTRA hard on everything else to compensate”. That’s the pleasing and perfectionist part of me. Although my sponsors fully support me and never ask for more, personally, if I can’t race I feel like I need to deliver somewhere else. But sometimes, working harder is not always the solution. We chose to rest and prioritize other activities I don’t normally get to do; seeing friends and family, going to the city for urban adventures, going on long new hikes with Mia…it was great! And now, my head is bubbling with new ideas, activations, projects that I want to work on. Hustle is good, but rest is too. There is no productive hustle without resting first

• 4. Have a team! I’ve learned that the medical process is not easy. You need a team around you. Big cycling teams have a full-time doctor. I don’t. Since I had never been injured badly in my cycling career, I never prioritized building a team of professionals around me…and it bit me in the ass. It made the process longer! If you’re a young athlete and reading this, here’s my advice: Even if you are not injured now, start building a team of doctors, physical therapist, osteo, etc around you. It will be useful if you ever get injured!

• 5. Accepting vs denying: Among all of those learnings, I think the biggest for me was the power of accepting. If I’m honest, I was a pain in the ass to be around this Spring. I was in a bad mood, I knew things were wrong but would not accept it. My biggest fear was stepping away from the bike AGAIN after taking almost 2 months off racing last fall. But once I accepted I had an injury, that it was holding me back, and that I should take care of it, things started going a lot better. By accepting where I was, I could finally take steps to get better. Even if that meant taking time off…the scariest thing for me! With that again, once I accepted to rest, things were wonderful!

I could go on and on, but I feel like this is getting long.

Anyway, sorry this was long. Turns out I learned a lot haha! Now, I’m slowly getting back on the bike and as I’ve mentioned, we have many fun projects in the works. Some mountain biking, some travelling, some bike packing, some gravel, and much cyclocross! Plus of course, many other ideas for fun projects. I'll keep you posted real soon!

I have a long and steep hill to climb before I find my top fitness again, but I'm excited for it. My biggest challenge now will be to not forget the biggest learning of them all: Accepting. I’ll have to accept where I am, be patient, and follow this wise adage: "Start where you are. Do what you can. Use what you have." If I follow that, combined with how rested, refreshed, and motivated I am, I’ll eventually get back to possibly my strongest level!

LET'S GO!

Thanks for reading. I doubt anyone got this far...maybe too many details, but it felt good to me to write it all down! Now let's shout out to some of my super badass friends who inspired me all month! And HUGE thank you to all my sponsors and people around me who supported me during this time. I do not take this for granted!

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