San Dimas Stage Race

Here is a little recap from Stage 3 of the San Dimas Stage Race that I wrote for Cycling Illustrated. 

The final stage of the 2013 San Dimas Stage Race, a technical six-corner crit, was fast and hard from the start. With less than 25 seconds separating the top three on GC and time bonuses available both throughout the race and at the finish, serious attacks were rolling off the front from the very first lap. 

After about 15 minutes of hard racing, a solid group including myself and second place GC rider Amber Neben got away, and was working well together to establish a gap. Unfortunately, Exergy-2016 saw their rider Mara Abbott’s overall GC lead starting to shrink, and worked hard to pull it back. 

After our break was reabsorbed into the main group, there were some counter attacks made by other teams, each of which was covered by one of my teammates, as I sat at the back of the group and tried to catch my breath and get my legs back for the sprint. With 5 minutes to go in the race, it was apparent that the win was going to come from a bunch kick, and teams started getting their lead outs set up. 

Our Specialized-lululemon team was one of the smaller groups at SDSR, and so we knew we had to play it smart and piggyback off another, bigger team’s train. When the bell sounded for the last lap, Optum-KBS made a strong move down the left hand side of the road, setting up a train for their sprinter, Brianna Walle. I was a couple riders back, but saw the chance to start moving up an Optum rider’s wheel, bringing my teammate Loren Rowney with me. 

On the backstraight, with less than half a lap to go, I accelerated into the back of the Optum train and then out and around their lead rider, kicking hard on the downhill into the last corner. I looked back for Loren and saw that she’d given me a bit of a gap and was battling with Brianna, and so I put my head down and drilled it into the finish, taking my first ever pro win. 

This weekend at SDSR was my first race with my new teammates and it could not have ended on a more positive note. To win a race because of the efforts made by all team members is incredibly rewarding, and sets us up well heading into Redlands in ten days.

Check out more photos and videos from the stage here. 

a few words from 2013 track worlds

and just like that, it’s all over - six races, twenty-four hours (three spent sobbing and dry heaving in various bathrooms), two very costly mistakes, the time trial of my life, and one world championship fifth place. game, set, match.

i would be lying if i said that the thought of quitting didn’t cross my mind many times. for several hours yesterday i put my head and my heart through absolute hell - no legs from too many sleepless nights and not enough food, no mental energy left to make split second tactical decisions. getting dropped, constantly, and clawing my way back. frantically trying to check back in, when everything in my body and in my mind had already checked out.

the overwhelming sense of guilt for letting everyone down.

i am familiar with pain, especially on the bike. i wait in eager anticipation for that feeling of lactic acid flooding my legs, for the taste of blood in the back of my mouth, for the harsh, ragged breaths as my overworked lungs strain for more oxygen. but this week, my heart has hurt more than i hope my legs ever will. every vein, every artery, every capillary, has been screaming at me - we are used up. there is nothing left.

i walked into the velodrome this morning with my head down, and my headphones in. i didn’t smile. i didn’t make eye contact with anyone. but then on rollers, slowly, oh-so-slowly, my legs started coming around. they knew what my head did not - today was a new day. three new chances to screw everything up, or three new chances to do everything right.

and somehow i did almost everything right: i put myself into the pain cave early in the pursuit, and managed to hang on. i followed my plan in the scratch race and came away with an okay result. finally, in the last event, it all came together: the perfect standing start that’s been a year in the making. the leg speed i’ve been cultivating on rollers since the games. the joyful agony of oxygen deprivation and the invincible feeling of not slowing down.

JS - today was for you. today (with all its good), and yesterday (with all its bad), and our team pursuit bronze earlier this week. with every pedal stroke, every start, every jump, i could hear you yelling. thank you.

NOTES FROM THE ROAD - A LULULEMON BLOG

 

As I write this, I'm packing (yet again) for a race. Tomorrow marks the beginning of the 2013 race season, and I'm more than a bit anxious about it. After such an exciting year filled with so many new experiences, thousands of international travel miles, and a fair amount of (good) stress, I feel like I'm being dragged kicking and screaming out the end of this off-season. Just one more week, please!

To be fair, my schedule has been picking up already for a month now. Just last week I returned to B.C. after a very successful first training camp in sunny Portugal with my new team, Specialized-lululemon. As 2013 will be my first professional road season and I'm coming into the whole thing as a bit of a novice, I admit I was quite nervous to start training with my new teammates, most of whom I had never met before! However, my fears were quickly laid to rest by the end of the first day. There's a reason that Specialized-lululemon is the most successful women's team in the world - the staff, riders, and sponsors are hand-picked from the best, and they all bring something unique and important to the table. I am so incredibly excited to contribute to that tradition of excellence in the next year. 

However, with excellence comes expectations. both internal and external. I am so proud of what I've accomplished in my short career, but I'm well aware that the bar has been raised for next year, and the next four years. Hence my desire for a just a few more days away from it all, a desire that I'm sure is shared by many. 

This year, it is my personal goal to acknowledge these feelings; acknowledge and accept that I am human and that it is normal to feel nervous about things that matter. 

By end of day tomorrow, after 100+ laps at breakneck speed on the velodrome, any anxiety I may have inwardly harboured will be gone. I'm a professional athlete, and in my heart there is really nothing I love more than competition....and honestly, there's no head space left for self-doubt anyway when I'm pushing myself harder than ever before.

From the lululemon blog.

specialized-lululemon

This blog post is so ridiculously overdue. But I've been busy! I swear. I just got back from Portugal last week, where Team Specialized-lululemon (of who I am a newly signed professional rider!) was having their first training camp of the 2013 season. Now I'm back to Los Angeles, and then off to Mexico and Hawaii next month. It's a hard life.

Anyway. I am so incredibly excited to be splitting my time between the track and the road this upcoming season! Stay tuned for results from the upcoming UCI Track World Cup in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and then the 2013 UCI Track World Championships in Belarus.

In the meantime, check out this blog I wrote for Specialized-lululemon.

new bike day!

I've been waiting for this day with bated breath for a few weeks now, ever since cross season officially started. Although standing on the sidelines with a beer in one hand and a cowbell in the other can be pretty fun, it's been a little while since I last raced and I've been getting jealous of my friends putting themselves in the pain cave without me.

So, you can imagine I was pretty excited to hear that my brand new Focus Mares AX 1.0 had finally arrived at Broad Street Cycles yesterday! It was lovingly built and tuned by my better half this afternoon, and I am now finally ready to hit the trails (figuratively, and probably literally as well, considering how long it's been since I last went off-road).

Huge thanks as always to my amazing sponsors Broad Street Cycles and Focus Bikes for getting me set up on yet another sick ride this season!

London 2012 Olympic Games - Race Report

On July 15, my teammates and I packed up our training base in LA and made the long trip across the pond to Apeldoorn, Netherlands, for our pre-Olympic camp.

Last training day in Los Angeles. 

Team Pursuit Video

Great video from the New Zealand men's Team Pursuit. This is what I do every day!

Olympic Selection

Well, it's official: I have been selected to represent Canada at the London 2012 Olympic Games! I will be joining teammates Tara Whitten, Jasmin Glaesser, and Laura Brown in the hunt for a Team Pursuit medal this August.

I am very honored to be a member of the largest track cycling team Canada has ever sent to an Olympic Games. With Zach Bell and Tara winning World Cup and World Championship medals in the Omnium, Monique Sullivan setting a new Canadian record in the 200m at yesterday's US Grand Prix of Sprinting, and Joe Veloce absolutely blazing through Olympic Keirin Trials earlier this month, I can't wait to see what our team can accomplish!

Although as a young triathlete and aspiring road cyclist I certainly dreamed of going to the Olympics, after taking a few years away from competitive sport I can't honestly say that this summer's Games were even on my radar twelve months ago. To go from working, studying, and racing the occasional alleycat and cyclocross race, to relocating to California for training and travelling the world to race at the international level in less than one year - it's been an amazing journey. I feel very fortunate to have the support of some incredible people: Richard Wooles, Tanya Dubnicoff, Mike Patton, Nancy Scholz, John Evans, Jenn Turner, Sara Poutanen, Sandy Gilchrist, Steve Sleep, Kirsten Barnes, Andrea Wooles, Doc Smith - thank you for working so tirelessly towards helping me get as fit, fast, happy, and healthy as possible.

And to my friends and family, YOU are the reason that I love riding my bike. Let's keep having fun!

VICF Inspirations

Bossing people around at last year's Harbour Sprints.

Fun little interview I did with the Victoria International Cycling Festival last month: 

Gillian Carleton grew up riding bikes around Victoria, competing on the road and as a Provincial Junior Triathlon Team member, before focusing her attention on the velodrome track. Then Gillian really took off. She’s now competing around the world and destined for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, England. Along with teammates Tara Whitten and Jasmin Glaesser, Gillian recently earned Canada’s first World Championship medal in the Women’s Team Pursuit. Her latest win is still very fresh. Just a few days ago, Gillian won the Dana Point Grand Prix in California.

Keep an eye out for Gillian at the Summer Olympics, for sure, but you’ll also find her helping organize local alleycats and the VICF’s Harbour Sprints. 

We recently caught up with Gillian to hear a bit about her experiences cycling in Victoria. 

VICF: Why do you think it’s important to celebrate cycling in Victoria?
Gillian: Victoria is the perfect city to be a cyclist in, with a mild climate, beautiful roads and a network of bike paths, and a thriving community and huge support network for all avenues of cycling. I think it’s very important to continue raising awareness about cycling culture in Victoria, and the VICF does a great job of inspiring more people to simply get outside and ride a bike. 

VICF: Your team recently earned Canada’s first World Championship medal in the Women’s Team Pursuit and you’re on track to compete at the Summer Olympics. How has living in Victoria contributed to your success as a cyclist?
Gillian: I have been supported and helped out along the way by some amazing individuals and groups within the Victoria cycling community. I hope that I will be able to use my success to help other up and coming local riders, and show them the same generosity and support that was given to me. 

VICF: When you’re not training at the Juan de Fuca Velodrome, what is your favourite area to ride? Most challenging?
Gillian: I think one of the most challenging (and fun!) areas to ride inVictoria is the Highlands (think Munn, Ross-Durrance, and Finlayson Arm). It’s quite easy to put yourself in the pain cave on a few of those roads, especially if you go hard up the hills. My favourite route of all time though is the standard Waterfront-Lands End ride: it’s flat, so you can either take it easy or hammer out some efforts, and you can always add (or subtract!) some distance to get the right volume for the day. Plus it’s a ride I’ve been doing since I was 14, and sometimes it’s just nice to ride something so familiar.

VICF: You have helped organized a number of local cycling events, including the Harbour Sprints. What do you enjoy about working off the bike and seeing others compete?
Gillian: I find it is very easy to get caught up in my own individual performance, and sometimes that can feel quite negative and self-centered. It’s very important for me to stay involved with cycling at a local and grassroots level, as I get reminded on a daily basis what it really means to just ride a bicycle for pure enjoyment. 

VICF: The VICF celebrates all types of cycling. Besides the Harbour Sprints, what event interests you the most and why?
Gillian: JumpShip is one of the VICF events that I am most looking forward to. It’s really cool to watch some of the most talented freeriders in the world throw down massive tricks, and the live music and outdoor party vibe make it so much fun.

Recovery

Training is easy...recovering properly is hard. Sometimes I find myself doing more than I should (physically and mentally) when I'm away from the track, and so I've been on the hunt for a mindless activity that I can throw myself into for the next 8 days. My goal? Entertain myself while logging quality recovery time in between preparation sessions for the upcoming Olympic Trials.

[note: said activity also must be totally consequence-free and unaffected by my rapidly dwindling level of commitment to anything beyond eating carrots like they're going out of style and stretching once a day.]

SO. I bring you the perfect way to waste maximize recovery time - learn a new language! I have been cosying up with rosetta stone for the past few days, and I gotta say, it's been a productive relationship so far. My hours spent horizontal are at a record high and I haven't gone crazy yet, plus I can count to ten in Italian. 

Stay tuned for a race report from last week's Exergy Tour. For now, here's a photo of my pain face on Stage 4 by Lyne at podiuminsight.