The Balancing Act

I apologize for falling off the ball a little bit with my updates in the last month, but it has been a stressful and busy time. In my last post I was finishing up in Europe and heading to the Gran Prix du Saguenay with the NCCH team. Saguenay was a great experience and it was nice to see so many familiar faces and get my first feel for the Elite ranks here in Canada. Some really good battles went down with the bigger teams, I was forced to watch as I was a bit run down from Europe and nursing an ongoing illness that I later went onto antibiotics for. NCCH were a great team with lots of likeminded people and a desire to have fun, I really enjoyed guest riding for them and hope to do so again in the future. Saguenay as a whole was a bit of a bust for me, but no regrets and I was happy to be heading home for the first time in nine weeks.

Having wrapped up the biggest trip of my life, it was time for a reality check. School was the primary concern, along with ensuring that I was still employed at the Canada Games Center. From the moment I got back, I had three weeks until exams. I was able to take a few days off from riding to really get a jump start at school and also let the antibiotics run their course on me. It was a very different first few day’s back, to go from living like a pro cyclist to living like a high school student. It was a nice change, but after one week I was ready to get back to it. My ski coach called me a few days after I got back and he asked what were the three nicest things about being home, of course family and friends were right up there, along with sleeping in my own bed, but the third was being back on home roads, not much can compare to what we have in Nova Scotia, I had not ridden my bike along the coast in months, and there is something really special about it, I missed the smell of the ocean and the amazing views of Peggy’s Cove and the Sambro loops; All those Belgians and even other Canadians are really missing out.

It’s normal to have stress when approaching exams, or a big race, having both at the same time is something I look forward to not having for some time now. Exams were more stressful than they have ever been for me, I had missed a lot during my travels, and it was a tall order to squeeze in all that I had missed. Balancing exams with trying to do a big block of training was hard, and on more than one occasion I found myself cutting rides a little short, or putting down my books and heading out. It was not fun, everything felt forced, but there were only two more weeks now till Nationals and Exams. I spent my weekends down at my cousins where I was able to do some really good motor pacing on the TT bike, the time trial at Nationals was a big target for me, though I not done any specific work in Europe for it, I was still keen to do what I could in the three weeks I had. Obviously that is not an ideal situation, but I put everything I had into it. The final week before I left for nationals was not the best in terms of training, I really had to crack down on school, and my final prep for the race suffered a bit. It was frustrating again but I was able to realize that I will have more than one shot Nationals and I was still confident in my form, however school really needed the focus right now, for next year when I apply for university, I don’t want this one week to stab me in the back.

I had one race while at home, the Provincial Time Trial Championships. I was using it as an indicator to see how my time trialing was coming along, see where I stood in a 40 km, a good test for Nationals. I was second on the day, 22 seconds down on PEI’s Cory Jay, one of my arch rivals in Maritime TT’s. Looking over my data with coach Luc, it was clear I was not where I needed to be just yet, and was not 100% on the day, but I was still confident in what I could do with the time I had. I was upset to miss out on the day, hearing I was just 5 seconds down with 10 km to go, but chapeau to Cory, the last ten Km were rolling with a 3 km climb to the finish, real strong man’s climb. I would also like to thank my friends at Sweet Ride Cycling in Mahone bay for getting my TT position dialed over the past weeks, I had never been some comfortable in my aero position.

It was very reliving when I walked out of that exam room, I said goodbye and thank you to all my teachers for the past three years, many of whom had helped me when it came to missed time and helping me to catch up. My exams went very well, much better than I expected, I was mostly lucky the physics exam went light on Magnetism, (I missed the whole unit and teaching myself was not working for that one.) My friends gave me a hard time when I told them I would be missing prom for Nationals, but it was something I was willing to give up. I did two more motor pacing sessions with my uncle and that was it, time to rest up for Nationals, stay tuned to the next post to see how it went.

#Oakley #NextGenU23

-Edward Walsh