Catharine Pendrel

It all started here, on our farm in Harvey, NB with the help of my brother Geoff and the unwavering support of my super parents After a childhood full of horses I made the switch to riding bikes at 16.  My first chance racing large fields of women was at the 2001 Canada Summer Games in London, Ontario. Even road racing became fun with big field sizes!  I had a feeling, confirmed by a fortune cookie this year, but man it was a lot of work to get there! After moving to BC for school in 2001, I met my husband Keith, self proclaimed mtb rain ninja.  Suddenly my home became the west coast of Canada and cycling a year round activity. In 2002 I met my coach Dan Proulx when I joined the Triathlon club to get in shape.  I eventually convinced him to take me on as an athlete, despite my apparent lack of form. 9 years later we earned our first World Championship title! I found my inspiration in fellow Canadian racers Kiara Bisaro and Marie-Helene Premont. Photo 2

So I’ll recap quickly to get to what you’re really interested in.   What happened in that final minute of racing?                                            Luna goes 1,2,3...just not in expected order It was a good race.  I had a crappy start again despite my best efforts and was playing catch up, trying to motivate myself to reach the front.  By lap 2 I had caught the chase group and only Katerina could go with me into lap 3, but Gunn Rita and Marie-Helene were always close behind.  After leading Katerina for 2 laps I started to pull away only to lose the precious seconds gained to a lapped rider on the final descent lap 4.  Again I worked all lap to build a couple second buffer for the final descent.  Georgia had been increasing her 20-second gap on lap 1 and was now up to 43 seconds on the final lap.  Coming down the last descent I was smiling.  It was going to be Luna 1,2,3 and Georgia had ridden the perfect race for the win and I had fought a hard race for 2 nd if I