Catharine Pendrel

Phew, what a world cup season!  This year was a career best season for me with 3 world cup wins, 2 seconds, and a win at the Olympic Test event. Yesterday the World cup season wrapped up with me finishing 2nd overall.  This goes to show how amazing a year 22 year old Julie Bresset has had equalling my 3 wins and 2 seconds, but also never finishing worse than 4th.  I had an incredibly consistent season and for the first time this weekend won World cups back to back, a great mental and physical challenge. After a few days in the Czech republic visiting with Katerina's parents the Luna team drove to Val di sole Italy for World Cup finals. The weather was hot and sunny all week and the organizers had made some nice changes to the course from last year.   Steep climbs were still the dominant feature of the course, but the descending had also been extended so that the course felt more balance between time spent going up and down. After last weeks win I was feeling upbeat.  I knew th

The first time to an unknown country and venue you never quite know what you will get.  In Czech we got a fantastic course, a well run race and amazing crowds which rivaled those in Quebec during the World Championships.  With riders like Katerina Nash and Jaroslav Kulhavy hailing from the Czech Republic it's no wonder. After three solid weeks of training at home and in Europe, lots of driving across Europe and having Keith going home, i was feeling pretty tired and worn down.  My legs felt good, but I wasn't sleeping that well and knew that mentally I would have to be extra prepared in case the race didn't go the way I wanted it to.  That if I had a mechanical, a crash, got passed by too many women, that I would have to be able to regroup quickly.  Mental fatigue can cause most of the inconsistency you see in race results.  But I had a great sleep before the race and woke up with good energy. I wanted to win here, not just because I always want to win, but because I