It was around this time last year that things kind of fell apart… I was pre-riding the World Cup course at Koksijde (a course I was familiar with and had raced two times previous) and I made a mistake. I put my front wheel in a hole and I crashed. This crash was different, I hurt and the hurt did not go away after a few minutes. Something was wrong when I could no longer lift my right leg. A quick call to Marc in Ottawa and I was off to the hospital. Turns out I had fractured the transverse process on my L3 vertebrae… Yes, not very good. The season was over – this injury needs a full 12 weeks to heal. Damn it. That day is etched clearly in my mind – it is amazing how quickly things can change.

And now here I am sitting in Ottawa thinking about the World Cup in Koksijde today. My friends are going through their warm-ups, trying to decide what to wear and likely attempting to dig some sand out of their eyes and ears. Ah, Koksijde – this is a magical race course – so darn hard but so awesome at the same time. It was at this race in 2009 that I earned the last chunk of UCI points that I would need to make the selection pool for the 2010 World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Tabor, Czech Republic.

This race has a special place in my heart. Dreams are made and broken in that sand.

Last year I didn’t think I’d be sitting in Ottawa wondering about the course conditions and thinking about my racing pals. I believed I’d be there racing again. But life has a funny way of working out. A few months ago I would have been devastated to not be in Koksijde, but I’ve learned a lot over the course of this cyclo-cross season. Sure I’m not in Belgium this year (this has nothing to do with my back injury – it is fully healed – instead the culprit is ulcerative colitis) – but this is okay.

Yesterday I received some fabulous news from my gastro doctor. Things are good. Really good. My bloodwork came back and my body is doing well – I’m in a remission. My hematocrit is slowly on the way up, my hemoglobin is good, my CRP (measure of inflammation in the body) is on its way down (was 12 in October and was 3 at the beginning of November – aiming for below 1), my iron is good – my body is back. The ulcerative colitis flare that showed up in April is finally behind me.

It is reassuring to hear my doctor tell me that there is no need to schedule a follow-up appointment – things are that good right now. Of course with ulcerative colitis there is always the knowledge that today I can be in a remission and tomorrow I can be sick again. But so what? I’m not going to let this linger and stop me from doing things. Last year when I crashed and injured my back I thought maybe I wouldn’t want to race again for fear of crashing. Well, guess what – I crashed last week and nothing bad happened!

If I’ve learned one thing over this year, it is this (and yes this will be cliche): life is short and it is up to each and everyone of us to grab it by the horns and make the most of it. I don’t have time for “wishing” and “hoping” there is only doing – and the same holds true for you. Today is a brilliant day – make the most of it. Whatever this is to you – it could be riding your bike, reading a book to your kid, watching a movie with friends – whatever it is – just make sure you darn well do it because really we don’t know what tomorrow will be like.

To say that I’m proud of Marc would be an understatement. On Saturday he took second place in the Masters 40-49 category at the Canadian Cyclo-Cross National Championships.

Marc raced a super race – leaving his legs, lungs, heart and soul out on the race course. It was so great to receive a text from Marc telling me how he did. (Truth be told I was following the race on Twitter – thanks Kris Westwood.)

I haven’t found any pictures from the race yet, but here are a couple of photos that sum up the day:

Looking good in second place

A nice shiny medal

Here is a brief recap of the race from Kris Westwood:

Of all the masters categories, the men’s masters 40-49 category produced the best race. Bob Welbourn was in tears after besting the 59-rider field in his first-ever appearance at a national championship. Clearly the strongest rider in the field, Welbourn punctured with three laps to go and dropped back to about 10th place as Marc Boudreau (Stevens Racing powered by The Cyclery) powered away in the lead. But Welbourn worked his way back through the field and caught Boudreau with less than 400 m to go to take an emotional victory. Welbourn is from Zimbabwe, but emigrated to Canada 15 years ago and soon became a citizen. He took up bike racing 12 years ago and has gradually turned into a respected racer in the North Vancouver area.

Marc had a great Saturday. It was so awesome to hear him tell me about the race. I’m super happy for him. The build-up to the cyclo-cross season was less than perfect for Marc – having to deal with my being sick all spring/summer and then crashing and injuring his ribs. This silver medal is a testament to what hard work and focus will bring you.

I can’t wait to see Marc and hear all about the race from him in person.

(If you were at the race and have photos – please let me know!!)

I’ve written a lot on this site about goals… primarily my cyclo-cross racing goals – the reasons for them, how I’m planning on achieving them and my feelings when I have or haven’t achieved them. As you can likely guess, I believe that goal-setting is a crucial part of life – goals should not be limited to just bike racing – we need personal goals, professional goals and even daily “to do” goals. These are the hopes, dreams and accomplishments that keep us motivated and encourage us to meet each day head-on.

Now is likely the time in your cyclo-cross season when you’re thinking about your goals. If you’re a Canadian, you likely have some very specific goals for this weekend’s upcoming Canadian National Cyclo-Cross Championships. If you’re American, you’ve likely got some big training goals and racing goals to keep you motivated for the rest of the season and nationals in January. Some of you likely have goals for World Cups, other European races and the 2013 World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

There are also some of you who have set goals for earlier in the season – you achieved them or you didn’t. If you did achieve your goals – congratulations. The next step is in assessing these goals – were they too easy? what worked and didn’t work in helping you to achieve these goals? what will you strive for next? If you didn’t achieve your goals – this is disappointing but it is not the end-of-the-world – after all you’ve still got more races left in the season. Set some new goals and work towards those. Before doing so, consider the goals that you fell short of – were they too lofty? did something happen that prevented you from achieving them? were they performance or outcome based goals?

Lets face it – everyone wants to win – heck everyone wants to be national or world champion. Are these realistic goals? For some of you – most definitely. For a lot of us – not really. So when setting your racing season goals and reassessing where you are right now in achieving these goals – don’t lose perspective of your abilities and strengths.

For me, I always had a range of goals – big season goals, training goals and race-by-race goals. The race-by-race goals always included some that were attainable and some that likely wouldn’t happen, for example:

• Stay focused at all times.
• Start hard and fast.
• Look ahead and where I want the bike to go.
• Race a full race – don’t ease up at any time.
• Stay off the front brake.
• Accelerate out of every corner.

As you can see these goals are not tied to an outcome or a result. Rather these are goals, that should I have achieved them all – would likely result in a good outcome for myself. You might think this is a bit of a cop out, but I’ve learned over the years that the number on the results sheet can be so varied – depends on who else is there, where I’m racing, and the course conditions. I could have a top 10 result in North America but in Belgium, I’d be aiming for a top 20 or 30 result.

Regardless of how many races you have left and how your season is going so far – take some time to think about what has worked and what hasn’t worked. Set some goals for yourself and focus on these. I find these goals really make it much easier to get out and train in the dark, rain, and snow… Remember, these are your goals – you don’t need to tell anyone else (except your coach) – and don’t let anyone judge your goals – these are about you and not anyone else.

You might know that I’ve started running again. I used to do quite a bit of running – I ran through-out university and then when I was training for taekwon-do I spent a lot of time running. I even ran a marathon a long time ago. I thought that since I’ll be here for the winter and since I’m not uber-focused on cycling training right now, it is the perfect time to start running again.

I went out and bought some shoes. Eagerly went out for my first run. Hobbled around the house and office for a week due to ridiculously tight calf muscles. I started running again one week later but my calf muscles were still sore. So I changed my running gait to land on my heel. I built up to three runs a week. Then I felt the pain. Stabbing pain in my right knee (right where the ITB is)… I and most others assumed it was my new shoes (that are almost minimalist but not quite). So I bought new shoes – but had never worn them until today… and then I returned them….

Thanks to a recommendation from a good friend, I made an appointment with a physiotherapist who specializes in running and running gait. Wow – what an amazing two hours. I learned that I have some severe muscle imbalances. I have become so “quad dominant” that my calf muscles, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes and even my feet are very weak and for the most part only along for the “ride”. In other words – I use my quads for everything – from balancing on one foot to holding side plank to simply walking around.

These muscle imbalances explain why my calf muscles were so sore after the first run and also the reason for this ITB pain. The good news is that I can fix these imbalances. I’ve got a sheet full of exercises and some hard work ahead of me but this will pay off huge. This way I’ll be able to run, ski, snowshoe and even improve my cyclo-cross racing.

Interesting – I’ve always found it challenging to “float” over the barriers – struggling to lift my feet high enough. Well after watching myself run on the video, it is obvious why… My hamstrings and glutes are so weak and not “firing” that it is hard for me to lift my feet very high off the ground. When I run, my feet barely come off the ground. Very interesting.

I found the session to be amazing. Amazed that I could have such crazy imbalances. But I’m excited to see how I’ll feel and move once we get things sorted. This won’t be an overnight transformation but if I stick to my exercises and do them properly I could be running in two weeks. The other interesting aspect to this is it explains why I have always had such a hard time balancing on my skate skis – I tend to edge all the time and my hamstrings and glutes would ache all the time…. Kind of need these muscles to be working to keep that ski flat on the snow.

Fascinating how the body is connected and how it works to compensate for imbalances.

With all this being said – I best be off to to work on my As, Bs, and Ds with some skipping and calf raises thrown in as well!

The short version: great weekend. Solid and most excellent racing by Marc. Fun times had cheering on friends by me. All in all – a most excellent weekend was had in Northampton/Hadley.

It had been a long time since I’d been lucky to make the trip down to Northampton for the Cycle-Smart cyclo-cross race weekend. These races always feature lots of fun (i.e. challenging) twists, turns, ups and downs. Throw in a few sand pits and a few long power sections punctuated by roots and some super fast barriers and you have some excellent cyclo-cross courses and racing.

Rumor has it that there were over 800 racers registered for the two days of racing! This is very impressive and speaks well to the growth of cyclo-cross in all categories. Since I wasn’t racing, I was able to take in lots of the race action before and after Marc’s races.

Apart from watching Marc race, I really enjoy watching the women’s 3/4/masters race. I’m always impressed with the number of women lining up at 9:30 in the morning to race in often chilly conditions. This combined category brings with it a wide range of skill level, fitness and experience – making it interesting to watch. The front of the race (top 10 or so) are quite quick and often have some pretty strong bike handling skills – no fears of leaning into corners, ripping down descents and hitting the barriers at top speed. The race does get quite strung out but I find that the more competitive it is at the front of the race – the faster the middle and back-of-the-pack races. This all contributes to continued growth and development for all racers – the leaders are pushed from behind and those chasing are digging deep to catch the wheels in front of them.

The other thing I like about this race category is that these women really appreciate the cheering. The elite women’s and men’s categories always have lots of spectators and fans – but the women racing in the 3/4/masters category don’t typically have a deep fan base.

Along with cheering on Marc, Cathy, Mike, Natasha, Derrick, Al, Mike and a whole bunch of other people, I was lucky to catch up with lots of my “cyclocross friends”. It is so refreshing to catch up and find out how things are going on and off the bike. An extra bonus was bumping into my old coach Steve Weller – such a treat to chat with him.

Away from Look Park, I seemed to spend most of my time at Whole Foods Market… After hitting up the hot and cold food bars at Whole Paycheque for two days in a row, I promised Marc that I would not shop at this store if and when it arrives in Ottawa! It is super tasty and high quality food but darn expensive…

Yes, a good weekend was had. In fact it was so good that I started wondering aloud about racing at the 23rd Annual Cycle-Smart International race weekend in 2013…

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Marc warming up

Cathy out of the saddle digging deep

Max the travelling cyclo-cross cat