During my tenure as a mountain bike professional I was fortunate to race in Quebec numerous times on the World and Canada Cup circuit. There were a number of years where I travelled to Mont Tremblant to enjoy the awesome trails and beautiful village. This year I returned to enjoy the paved surfaces and aquatic environment at the venue and I have found my new favorite. Wow, Tremblant.. what a show! The race was challenging in both the course and the competition and I am happy to have held third place with Linsey Corbin and Magali Tissyere taking top spots in front of me. I continue my march back to fitness and a podium is excellent!
Copyright Nathalie Madore photo. This is Melanie using her Pearl Izumis like a skier uses her skis! (I got rocks in them somehow)
Racing in Quebec is always of the highest quality. From the excellent prerace excitement, the incredibly well organized expo and course, the nicest road surfaces I have ever raced on, the best run aid station energy, lots of media and a sold out field of 2300 people: this race is incredible. You must do it.
The day began with my worst swim ever in history. I don’t know what happened. I was swimming fine until the first turn buoy and then somehow I drowned. I don’t know how I lost the group because I didn’t blow up I just stopped moving. I can’t even explain it. I am so comfy in my Blue Seventy wetsuit and it is of the best quality suit on the market so something I am doing when I swim is wrong. This is my main disappointment on the day. What happened? I am actually a good swimmer!
Mel’s cute Blueseventy swimsuit and the goggles of choice for race morning. Sweet 🙂
Needless to say spotting more than 2 minutes to Linsey and Magali and riding alone didn’t set me up for Mel’s best race. I gathered my wits and my courage but lost further time on the day. I think in the end when I look at all the splits everything was equally a bit off. I hope to go faster on the bike in particular in the future as that wasn’t really the ride i had anticipated. Third fastest bike split but not enough to find my way back into the race.
Sticking your tongue out does make this much easier. Nice pedi, eh?
My run started strong and I took back a few seconds from Magali early on but in the final stretch faded a bit. I was strong enough to run back into third and hold with a solid lead on fourth. Running into such an amazing finish line with so many fans is awesome. The organizers of Tremblant really had a solid dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Championships with this event. It is going to be awesome.
Merci pour le beatdown Tremblant!
We ran down this towards the finish line.
Thanks so much to Tremblant for the invitation to such a great event. Thank you to the legions of volunteers, police and Quebec government for making the race possible. Thanks to Synergy Heath Management for the post bike fit tuneup J I made some changes to my position this week that I think are going to be a big change for future races.
Thanks to Shimano and Cyclo Technique Montreal for the pre race support!
Thanks to Champion System for the kits pre race… say no to butt crack!
Thanks to Trek, Bontrager, Powerbar, Polar, Rudy Project, Blueseventy wetsuits, Powertap, USANA and SciCon bags. Thanks also to my local YYJ supporters Pro City Racing and Synergy Health Management.
Thanks also to my friends Magali Tissyere and Linsey Corbin and the rest of the women’s field for being such excellent competitors and great people as well. Always a pleasure to test myself against such incredible athletes. Congratulations to Terenzo, Brent, Guillame, Trevor and the men’s field as well for putting on a great show!
Mini Mel and Mini Mags in the mega chair.
P.S. This was the cookie that Trevor Wurtele was trying to temp me with…..luckily I am an oatmeal raisin girl…
