Back on the World Cup in Dublin!

by Maghalie Rochette

The Irish people are very kind, and they seem to have a lot of interesting sayings and expressions in their language, too. So in the spirit of thanking them for the hospitality this past week for the Dublin World Cup, I’ll do my best to include a few of those here…

“You’ve got your won growing to do, no matter how tall your father was.” For the last two months, I’ve been watching the European cyclocross races on television, studying the other riders, using it as motivation for my own training, and wondering where I would be in the peloton. When we finally got to the course pre-ride at the Dublin World Cup this Saturday, I felt so happy that it was finally my turn! Finally, I would get to see where I’m at amongst the world cup field.

In all transparency, it felt so good to simply have that feeling on the eve of a World Cup! I guess this is what it should be like, but I hadn’t had that feeling in a while at a World Cup. I felt free of any kind of fear, and only was excited to give my best and see how it would go.

In and of itself, this was already a big win for me! I’ve worked a lot on myself and on my mindset over the last several months, and just reconnecting with the joy of competing while feeling both engaged and free felt like a huge growth.

“May the wind be always at your back”
The race started, and one of my main goal was to hold my space and not let myself be intimidated by the rest of the field. Right away on the start, I saw an opening on my right, and I jumped on it without hesitation. I found myself moving up from the third row to 5th place almost immediately! “YES!”

I felt calm and strong, and determined to stay at the front of the race. However, I noticed pretty quickly that I was not riding well technically. As soon as we hit the back section of the course that was covered in deep mud, I was making many small mistakes that sucked my speed. I started be passed, and I wasn’t too worried but I was trying hard to maintain a high speed and good positioning. It wasn’t long until I hit a muddy rut wrong, hit the post of a fence and flew over my handlebar. My 5th position quickly became a 20+ position when I crossed the first lap. Yet, I never felt discouraged; right away I switched my mindset to attacking the course and catching up people.

Despite the well wishes from the Irish, the wind felt like it was straight in my face, and blowing hard, making the solo chase difficult. “Luckily, everyone is dealing with this” I thought.

The rest of the race was a game of catch up, and I also had a few battles. I felt strong on the pedalling and flat turns sections, and I was present enough to understand my technical mistakes, so I managed to adjust and improve slightly throughout the race.

I crossed the line in 15th, feeling proud of my fight, and a bit anti-climatic about my result.

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.”
Not that I truly needed a cure…Despite not feeling ecstatic about my result, there was so much to be proud of in the way I raced. Soon after the race, my brain quickly started listing all the things I did well, which made me feel hopeful and I could improve quickly for the next rounds. Again, this was another small win. I was so engaged and present in the race that I knew exactly where I was losing time on the other girls. This seems like a pretty obvious thing, but I’ve had many races in my life where I finished being totally clueless as to what happened in the race, and therefore had no idea how to improve.

Yesterday’s effort was honest, and the good thing about that is that you get honest feedback.

A good Craic
The whole weekend was good Craic (Irish for Fun)! It was cool to be back in such a strong field…I had to fight hard for the 15th place, and it is cool to be racing in a deep field where every position requires a fight. David and I felt positive all weekend, and enjoyed being back at the European races.

As I said I did not need a cure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a good laugh and good sleep! So when the race finished, we packed our things and drove into the city of Dublin for the evening. Our friend and photographer/videographer Alexe was with us, and we picked up two Canadian Juniors (Nico Knoll and Carden King) who also wanted to visit the city. We walked around town, saw some castles and other historical monuments, entered an old Irish pub, ate Fish N Chips, and walked around a Christmas Market! We had a few good laughs hearing stories from the young guns, and came back to the hotel for a good sleep.

Today, we are flying to Sardegna Italy, where we will spend the week training before the next World Cup on Sunday!

I’m already excited to see how I can do next week in the World Cup :)

Thanks for reading,

Maghalie