Alison Edition: 2015 Global Relay Canadian National Championships

Thursday Time Trial – June 25, 2015

                The Canadian Championships TT would be my longest TT of the year at 30km.  The day was windy and the course was two laps of descending at 70kph and climbing up a near 7% grade.  I was able to negative split my laps while maintaining a consistently hard pace.  When I finished I had the best placed time but I knew that there were several key contenders after me.  In the end I took home 7^th place and a greater understanding of what level of pain one must embrace in order to be a champion.  Congratulations to Carol-Ann on her win.

Photo by Velo Palmares

  

Friday Road Race – June 26, 2015

                The road race course itself was selective due to the wind, a steep climb in the 3x15km circuits, with a longer climb out of the circuit toward the finish at 110km.  The Canadian field is strong and the hunt for the Maple Leaf jersey was fierce.  It was all about playing the game of tactics and riding hard.  We had a beautiful day to ride and I had a great time rolling on Quebec’s roads.  It wasn’t a perfect race but I grinded the gears to 4^th place.

Photo by Richard Wooles

Sunday Criterium – June 28, 2015

                The Sunday crit was a West Coast crit due to the rain that came down for the race.  Rain is not a problem for a BC winter riding gal like me and I had been looking forward to the punching crit course all weekend.  The course was fast, it climbed to the finish, rounded two corners descending, and then climbed again.  It was a dynamic race and I came into it with a plan.  A few breaks went and were pulled back, but the winning move was a break of two out of which I was able to take the win on the uphill finish.  The win was really sweet because my parents were there to watch it happen.

                I really enjoyed my debut riding at Canadian Nationals and am really thankful to have the best equipment to use courtesy of our sponsors Felt Bicycles, SRAM, Zipp, Speedplay and Fizik.  A huge thank-you to Twenty16 p/b Sho-Air for taking a chance on me this year and developing me as a cyclist.  Thank you to the supports of CyclingBC, Richard Wooles and Julian Base for the technical and managerial support, and running around for us all week, it would have been much more stressful had I been there on my own.  Thank you to my coach Alison Testroete, and also Felicia Gomez for working with me this year – we are looking good!  And yes, thank you Bruce and Phoenix Velo Training Group in Mission, BC where I got my cycling start.

Super happy that my parents could cheer me on to my first Championship win. Photo by Richard Wooles.

2015 Canadian Crit Champion

Full Results here.