Copyright: https://www.michelguillemette.ca/
The Milton Nations Cup was a special experience. Nothing can describe the feeling of pride in pulling on a maple leaf skinsuit. However, it was also a very tough experience. My event, the team pursuit, is 4km from a standing start with four riders at speeds over 62kph. The high speeds and close formation mean there is little room for error.
It's always the desire of an athlete that training and racing go without error, and that's rarely the case. Especially when you have other athletes depending on your performance and coaches who have invested time and faith into it. The Milton Nations Cup was a very tough experience for me in this regard; I didn't perform to the level that I should have. I unclipped on the start line and got off the line slow on the restart, perhaps as a result. That cost me, and I ended up taking shorter turns than the team needed me to. Three kilometers in, I blew up. The rest of the lads heroically managed to recover and finish it off, but I know the blame for a poor performance lay at my feet. Regardless of the fact that our squad was a development squad, that not much was explicitly expected of us, every athlete in that lineup wanted something more, even if nothing more than a clean effort, and it was at least partly on me that we didn't achieve that. What I did redeem from the affair was some incredible experience failing in an international setting. Recovery from the biggest failures results in the biggest gains in my opinion, and I now know precisely where I am lacking, mentally and physically. The second I returned from Milton I began working to hammer those weaknesses into strengths. I will improve more because of my failure than if I had found success.
On another note, it was a real pleasure to watch the races of my fellow Red Truck teammates, Amiel Flett-Brown, Sarah Van Dam, and Fiona Majendie. They are incredible athletes who manifest the qualities which best define a Red Truck Racing athlete: composed, confident, and willing to respond to Steve's/BG's emails within 24hrs.