Catharine Pendrel

Hey there's lots of year end votes going on at Pedal and Canadian Cyclist and I'm lucky enough to be nominated in both along with a lot of other talented Canadian riders so check it out! Pedal is pleased to announce that on-line voting for their Annual Cycling Awards honouring Canada's top riders is available here . With the New Year approaching it's time to reflect on the 2007 season and make your selections for Canada's top riders. Winners will be selected on the basis of votes accumulated at www.pedalmag.com by readers across the country. All entrants are eligible to win one of three prizes:- 1st prize a 1-yr subscription to Pedal - 2nd prize a Pedal Poor Boy Hat - 3rd prize a Pedal T-Shirt You can complete as many or as few categories as you like, but you are limited to only ONE entry per person. Voting ends at 12 midnight on Sunday, December 30, 2007 (EST) and the winners will be announced on Monday, December 31, 2007. For Canadian cyclist voting go her

Dec 22nd and the snow banks in Revelstoke are already huge Keith and I headed to Revelstoke on Saturday. It snowed non stop from Saturday morning until Sunday night adding to the 3 ft of snow already on the ground. Saturday was the opening of the expanded ski hill on Mt. Mckenzie. The DH ski area is now 5 times the size it was. Top to bottom runs were taking us 25 minutes and we had to stop for tons of rest breaks to give are legs a break from the demands of powder skiing. The terrain is unreal. Lots of variety, powder and long fun runs. Best of all, there was so much terrain that you never had to wait in line. We only had to stop when our legs couldn’t take any more burn. Keith, who has been waiting for this since grade 4 had a huge grin on his face. Although I drug my camera around all day. My batteries crapped out before I got any good mtn. pics. You'll just have to go ski there yourself!!! Christmas day we took advantage of the snowshoe trails for a hike on Mt Revelstoke. New

So the leak is out. I will be riding for a new team next year. After two fantastic seasons on Norcos I will be joining the Luna women’s mtb team next year. Riding with Luna will give me the opportunity to be fully supported at all of my races as well as, the opportunity to race and prepare for races with very talented and experienced team mates. After years of racing as an individual I’m looking forward to travelling and racing as part of a team. I’m also excited to announce the addition of Oakley as a sponsor for 2008. Christmas is coming multiple times this year!!! I want to say a huge thank you to Norco for their support over the last two years. The bikes and staff were great and I’ll really miss the crew next year.

602 supporters have already signed on. Hope you will too To: Union Cycliste Internationale (U.C.I.) We, the undersigned, find it regrettable that there is still a considerable disparity between the UCI minimum prize money for men and women. We understand that because competition in the men’s field is deeper, more places receive prize money. We do not understand why the women who are receiving prize money receive less than their male counterparts. Therefore we propose that the UCI show leadership and mandate equal prize money for the top five men and women. Article 3 of the UCI Constitution states: “The UCI will carry out its activities in compliance with the principles of: a) equality between all the members and all the athletes, license-holders and officials, without racial, political, religious, or other discrimination.” We ask the UCI to honor its commitment to equality. http://www.petitiononline.com/equalpay/petition.html

Thursday I gave my first Tobacco free Sports presentations at Logan Lake Secondary. I was super lucky to start at this school as the students were great with tons of questions. I presented to the grade eights and nines and managed to get through my whole presentation without forgetting anything major! Thanks to Mrs Hall for inviting me out and Mr. Dell who was subbing on the day and got things off to a smooth start. I am one of 8 athletes in BC who is going into schools to share our sport story in hopes young people will turn to sport rather than tobacco to make fun, cool friends, have a good time and grow as a person.

For the longest time I believed that if I ate balanced, healthy meals I’d be getting everything I needed without supplements. This idea has merit and is stress free when it comes to hoping that companies list all ingredients in their products, but is eating right enough for an athlete? After losing a significant amount of weight this year due to training demands and cutting out junk food (mostly) I sat for many months on the lower end of healthy body weight. After chipping a tooth this summer and then reading an article about osteoporosis in cyclists I started worrying about bone density. Although not considered to belong in an at risk group I was able to get a bone density scan thanks to the National team affiliated doctor. It turns out I was being a bit paranoid, but not overly. My bone density fell within the normal healthy range, but was a bit lower than expected for someone my age. So my doctor recommends more calcium (with vitamin d) for me and more weight bearing activ