Catharine Pendrel

Wow, was I worked over. Heat, altitude, time changes and tons of travel all caught up to me Saturday night. Not to mention a whole lot of lung butter from the race! There’s a reason teams travel with a massage therapist. With our crazy schedules we’d all be riding like poo otherwise. In the morning we did a coffee spin into park city and Java cow where we bumped into Dallas and Mical for Cappuccinos. We then headed out for team breakfast where we filled up on pancakes and omelettes. Yummy. Man life is rough! The short track was at 1:15 and I was having a little trouble convincing myself I wanted to do it. I was thinking about those people you see yelling to get themselves pumped up and was thinking that I might need to do that today. After a couple warm up efforts though, the legs were feeling better. Today, if I didn’t win the start I owed Waldek a pound of coffee beans. I got wine if I won…but didn’t. True to tradition I fell back to about 10th. I could see Georgia a

Well after only 56 hours at home I was back at the airport. This time headed for Park city Utah and stop 4 on the NMBS circuit. Immigration issues meant a missed flight and 8hrs at the Vancouver airport before I could get a flight to Utah. Chris was there to pick me up and dropped me and my bike off 8 miles from the venue to get a little spin in before bed. The course in Deer Valley is wicked. It starts with a good climb and then sends you into fast sweeping singletrack. There were tons of sharp corners where I had to learn to perfect my rear wheel slide or give up gobs of time. There were 3 major climbs, 2 of which were switchbacking singletrack and 2 long descents. The venue is at 8000ft and the altitude was noticeable with the amount of time my heart rate was hanging out above 170. Waldek set the goal for me of winning the start – to prep for world cups where I have been sucking off the line. I had a decent start, but didn’t win it so decided I’d make up for it on the firs

At last year's test event in Beijing So it is now official. I'm going to the Olympics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you to everyone that has helped me get here. Keith, you deserve a lot of the credit. My coach Dan who has helped me get faster every year since we started working together in 2003. My mom, Dad, Bro and friends who were always supportive. Sues, Grainger and Geoff who were not only great fans, but kept Keith company through my many travels. The amazing Luna team, the girls on the CC crcuit that pushed me to get faster and the awesome communities of Kamloops, Fredericton and Harvey.

After over a week in Val di Sole I was ready to get on with the racing. You can only taper so long before you're gong nutzo...especially when you're surrounded with crazzy mountain passes you shouldn't be riding...even in your granny gear;-) I had kinda weird energy Worlds morning. Nervous definitely, but unsure of my legs and fire. The whistle went off and I was off from my second row call up into the fast flat start loop. Pretty immediately I started loosing gobs on positions and found myself back in the 30's and 40's. Even when the race started heading up I was being passed and was let's say a little concerned about the outcome of the race. The climbs started to kick steeper and I found my groove. By mid lap 1 I was top 15 and 8th going into lap 2 with a group. It was a tough hot race. I was worried I went out too hard, but was able to dial it back a little thrid lap so I could pin it the last two. The best part of the race was chasing down Gunn rita last la

Raphael, Derek, me and Evan after the relay On Tuesday I raced the Team Relay for Canada. We started with Raphael Gagne our U23 man followed by me, Derek Zandstra was our senior man and Evan Guthrie our junior. It’s funny, but I think I was more nervous for this race than for most races I’ve done in my life. Racing as a team is different, different pressure and different excitement. There were 20 teams registered and all of our team except Raphael were new to the relay. It poured on and off all morning, but Chris had Medussas ready on my wheels. They were perfect for the sloppy conditions. Raph got us off to a good start finish lap 1 in 11th position and tagged off to me. I was out of the gate with an Ukranian guy and was doing a good job of sticking with him. About 3minutes in I caught and passed New Zealand rider Rosara Joseph and was passed by an Australian guy. I dug deep on the climbs and was making very few mistakes on the tricky descents so was feeling pretty good about my ride.

We just drove the craziest roads I’ve ever been on. After a relaxed morning walking around Bern shopping including the necessary annual visit to the Merkur (chocolatrie) Sandra and I packed up our rental Ford Fiesta and headed towards Italy. We drove through familiar territory in the Grabunden, where we spent a weekend riding last year and then headed from Davos up the Fluejla pass and into the snow and glaciers. The Fluejela was the first of many mountain passes on that trip. We took the fiesta through more switchbacks than I can keep track of and coined the fiesta slide and Fiesta Exclamation. :-0 If you want to do an epic training camp base out of this area of Italy or Switzerland and you can be doing a new pass every day and hours of climbing. We finally strolled into Dimaro Italy, just down the road from the Worlds site at 9pm, ate some dinner and crawled into bed. Sandra Raced the Italian cup on Saturday and finished a close 4th in a very strong International field. Ital

After a very long travel day 6:30am till midnight Sandra and I were back with her aunt and uncle in Switzerland. Monday was relaxed with a great ride around the Bern countryside. Road riding in Switzerland is great. Tuesday we got in a good workout and then joined her family for 18 holes of minigolf and ice cream. I didn’t win…I tied for 2nd last. It would have been hard not to notice that Switzerland is one of the host nations for the Euro championships of soccer. There are fans everywhere and all the bakeries had soccer ball shaped cookies and chocolates. Although no "Swiss" games were being played in Bern there were huge jumbo tvs set up downtown and almost every restaurant had the games playing. Sepp and Sonya gave Sandra and I each a Swiss shirt and we hopped the bus for down town. We strolled around checking out the craziness and settled on a pizza restaurant with a TV for dinner and people watching. Afterwards we headed to the Jumbo TV in time to see Switzerland score

Some nice Scottish scenery My dad at the swim hole near our place. The day before the race Waldek threw me in...but was nice enough to give me the choice of weather I wanted to take my jacket off first! Mum took a wipe out on the course! Ouch Chris, Georgia and Katka The cool valley near our place. The parallel lines on the hills arefrom glaciers pushing a lake back over years. After finishing 6th at the Worlds in Fort William Last year I was hoping this was going to be another podium weekend for me. We got to Scotland Tuesday afternoon and did a road ride up this amazingly beautiful valley that had perfectly even lines running along it from glaciers of old. We stayed in a house so were able to avoid too many overcooked vegetables and heavy Scottish dishes that just don’t leave the gut feeling that great. My parents arrived on Thursday and joined us for dinner at the house. The next day they walked the course and my mom managed a good face plant on the trail, bruising her forehead an