Val di Sole World Cup
The snowy mountains of the Dolomites are towering over us. Their beauty is majestic. I just finished a bike race in the snow, in some tricky conditions that challenged my technical skills and physical abilities, while requiring 100% of my brain power to focus on each meter of the course. This is one of my favorite race venue and these are some of my favorite conditions. I should feel an exhilaration from crossing the finish line after battling with the world’s best, through the wall of sound created by shouting Italian fans. Yet, I feel nothing… or maybe I feel emptiness. I’m completely exhausted, but not just from the effort.
“What is going on?”
Photo by Billy Ceusters
The inner dialogue of a people-pleaser
There is a thought that had been floating in my head for the last few days. The thought became clearer after an insightful conversation I had with two good friends, where we talked about the feeling of being ready and energized to race, and how we needed to create space for this feeling to happen. The thought was there, but I had not found the courage to speak it out loud. Instead, I’d been trying to push it away, choosing to focus on actual steps and actions I could take to bring the most positive, vibrant, and confident version of myself on the start line of my favorite race.
Despite my best efforts, and despite many moments where I did manage to focus on the important things to do, the thought would not go away. Welcome to the inner dialogue in the mind of a — as Taylor Swift calls it in her most recently released song “You’re loosing me” — “pathological people-pleaser”.
Me: “Despite trying everything I can to bring my best attitude and performance to each day, training session, and race, I feel like I’m getting worse every week. I’m lacking a spark and my body feels weak. I feel like I would need to go home to reset, recharge, and retrain. Then maybe my spark would come back”
Other part of me: “But I said I would come here 3 months. I told my partners I’d be racing here for 3 months. I dragged Mia and David and all our life here for 3 months. I can’t back down and tell them that I feel like I need to reset.”
Me: “But how else can I turn things around? I’ve been trying different strategies for the last few weeks, and I can’t seem to make it work. We’re now approaching the busiest racing period of the year, and I do not feel ready at all.”
Other part of me: “Exactly, you’re approaching the busiest part of racing fo the year. You can’t possibly miss this. Everyone does the Kerstperiode. You can’t miss it. If you come to Europe for one period of racing, it HAS to be this one. You just can’t miss it. What will everybody think if I don’t race it?
Me: “But is it better if I show up to every race as a fraction of myself and I dig a hole all the way until the end of the season? What I want is not to do as many races as possible. I want to bring the best of myself to the races I start. Is my job to just be there? Or is my job to bring the best of myself to the events so I can offer the best visibility I can to my partners?”
Other part of me: “But it is your job to race. You’re here now and you have to do it. You would be letting everybody down if you took a small break to reset.”
….to be fair this inner dialogue went on and on to much further depts. Analyzing every aspect, opinions, feelings, etc. But you get the picture. I felt that I needed to take action in some way to get back to where I want to be, but felt paralyzed to speak up because I didn’t want to hurt anyone, displease anyone, and because I was afraid of what making a decision would make me look like.
Eventually, though, the truth came out and I was able to be honest to the people around me.
The forgotten strategy
At the beginning of the season, David and I sat down and established a plan which we believed to be our best strategy to find success this year. In light of the year we had had, the information we had at the time, and the way we felt, this is the strategy we felt was best: quality over quantity. We wanted to do things well, we didn’t care if it was not a huge amount. We wanted to leave ourselves some space to rest, prepare well, and perform.
Initially, our plan was to race in North America, and then go to Europe for 2 or 3 short blocks of racing, with a simple and limited set up abroad. I've had all my best international results in that way.
We followed our plan well in the beginning, racing successfully in North America. We travelled and raced well in the early season, but never more than 3 weekends in a row, to make sure we could keep our internal batteries charged, and to make sure I could keep training in between race blocks. I had some injuries and health issues in the past year which meant I did not train as much this summer as I wanted or normally do. To insure good performance throughout the whole season, I needed to make sure to keep training well in the season between races, which also meant staying energized enough to handle that training.
This plan was working really well. I was feeling amazing on the bike, happy and energized, hungry in the races, driven to challenge myself and perfect my craft; all of which allowed me to perform at a high level, consistently delivering performances at my full potential. And then…? Well, then, the plan was working so well that I got carried away by my emotions. I got EXCITED. Blinded by my excitement and drive to challenge myself, I forgot the plan.
We booked tickets and packed our lives (simplicity goal: forgotten) to go to Europe for the MAXIMUM amount of time as we legally could. My drive to succeed and my dreamer’s mentality have often been part of what propelled me in my life…but in this instant, they also blinded me. I was 4th in the World Cup overall, and suddenly, being highly ranked in that overall ranking became a goal. Quality over quantity goal? Forgotten. There are 14 World Cups; one every weekend (except one), for 15 weeks straight, and it suddenly became my goal to do them all.
This brings me to now. December 12th. Three months into the cyclocross season, and 5 weeks into this European trip. Five weeks in which I raced 6 times, and travelled 8000km by car or plane throughout Europe. Quality over quantity? Ouch. Five weeks that I’ve been trying to find the best version of myself, by working and fighting to the best of my abilities, and where I keep falling just a little bit short.
And this weekend in Val di Sole, I decided to take a step back and evaluate where I was. What I found was that I felt tired and missing a spark. And when questioning this state I find myself in, I realized that I’ve been riding away from my initial strategy.
The conditions were super challenging and a puzzle for everyone to figure out. Figuring it out as quickly as possible is what makes a great CX racers. Others managed that better than me this weekend -- props to them!
Photo by Billy Ceusters
Let's go build a shovel
"Imagine a team of ditchdiggers working with their hands. A slight variation in the amount of soil moved per hour is barely perceptible. The only way to move more dirt is to dig for longer. Within this paradigm, the ditchdigger who takes a week off to experiment and invent a shovel seems crazy. Not only do they look like a fool for taking a risk, but their cumulative production falls behind for every day they are not digging. Only when the shovel comes along do others see its advantage." - Shane Parrish, from his book Clear Thinking
I am now on a plane back home with the goal of finding the best version of myself to bring back to Europe. What is this version? A Maghalie that feels energized, happy, strong, confident, and ready to fight. If I had to describe this with an emoji, it would be this one: 😈
Now, all these words make this seem like a huge deal, and I don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it is. The truth is, my performances have not been that terrible. In the 6 races we did, I’ve been twice in the top 10 of World Cups, my worst performance has been 14th, and I now sit 7th in the Overall Ranking. Really not that bad. But it’s not about the result as much as it is about feeling like I can bring more.
Additionally, if I was living in Europe, I could just say I’m taking a couple of weekends off to reset and train at home. Like everybody does regularly. It sounds like a bigger deal here because it so happens that I live in Canada and need to take a flight to go home…but really, just like any athlete, I’m choosing to reset to come back stronger. I’m not giving up on anything. If anything, this is me not giving up. This is me standing up for myself and choosing to not accept to be average all season. This is my quest to finding the best of me.
It might look like a failure, but to me, it is anything but. If I ‘failed’ at one point, it may be when I got carried away by my excited emotions and ditched my strategy to chase ALL the carrots, instead for focusing on fewer targets, like I originally wanted to do. I'm proud of catching myself now instead of blindly continuing in that direction.
Anyway, if you made it this far in the text, congrats, and thank you haha. The one last thing I’ll say, if it isn’t already obvious, is that this was not an easy decision. I know that I’ll be watching the races on TV wishing I was there. I COULD have been there. This is to me the hardest (and the most costly) decision to make. But I feel confident this is the best way forward for me, and as hard as it was to make the decision, it gives me power that I did.
Thanks again for following and happy holidays to everybody! I’ll be back racing soon. For now, let's go build a shovel!
-Maghalie