Catharine Pendrel keeps pedalling forward.
At age 36, the veteran of three Olympics and two Pan-Am Games refuses to let her sport pass her by, even as it continues to grow and change.
“The thing about mountain biking is it’s a relatively new sport and it keeps evolving,” says Pendrel. “Physical, mental, tactical, technical — there’s always something you can be doing that motivates you to find more.”
Every athlete experiences peaks and valleys. The difference for mountain bikers is that they’re not just metaphorical.
In 2010, the sport’s world governing body began instituting more man-made features on mountain bike courses, including jumps and drops. This change added a fear element to the sport and meant riders would have to change their training slightly to focus more on technical skills.
For Pendrel, the change meant two broken collarbones in training — one each in 2013 and 2014.
“I recovered pretty quickly from those but it’s more a confidence thing,” she says. “Maybe, where in the past you may have been a little bit less cautious, now you always have a little bit more of that caution in the back of your mind.”
Olympic rise
Pendrel, who grew up in New Brunswick and now resides in Kamloops, B.C., has competed in the last three Summer Olympics. In Beijing in 2008, she finished nine seconds out of the podium.
Four years later in London, she entered as the gold-medal favourite and reigning world champion. She even won an online poll conducted by CBC Sports to determine Canadian fans’ choice to be the flag-bearer for the opening ceremony, though that honour ended up going to Simon Whitfield.
She would finish ninth in her race.
“The biggest thing that I learned from London is to not put so much pressure on yourself,” says Pendrel. “It’s the Olympics and anything can happen and it probably will. So just kind of go out there and stay focused on what you need to do to ride your bike as fast as you can.”
That lesson paid off in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, as Pendrel was finally able to add an Olympic medal, a bronze, to her collection of world championship, World Cup, Pan Am and Commonwealth Games hardware.
“I think we did do some small changes to be less fatigued going into the [2016] Games. And part of that less fatigue is also the mental training you do where you’re doing meditation and stuff like that,” says Pendrel.
Pendrel celebratedher bronze in the women’s cross-country mountain bike event at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Dan Proulx is the head coach of Canada’s national mountain bike team, and has been Pendrel’s personal coach for the last 14 years. He agrees that learning to focus on the process was the last thing Pendrel needed to conquer before finally reaching the Olympic podium.
“It took a couple Olympic cycles to really drive that message home and Catharine now is the probably the biggest believer in daily excellence and world-class fundamentals,” says Proulx.
Pendrel says she hasn’t given much thought to competing in Tokyo in 2020 since it’s still three years away. But her age — she’ll be 39 by then — won’t be a factor.
“I don’t think that age has anything to do with your motivation because when you’re racing as long as I have, it’s just finding the goals that inspire you,” she says.
Her brother Geoff Pendrel, himself an elite mountain bike racer, says ability won’t be a factor in the 2020 decision either — that’s that’s a given. Instead, it will come down to desire.
“If she wants to be there, I think she will,” he says. “If she’s not in Tokyo, it’s probably because she decided that’s not what she wanted.”
Back-to-back?
This year’s World Cup series began two weeks ago in the Czech Republic. Pendrel found herself in third place before a flat tire dropped her all the way to 36th. She would finish 26th. One week later in Germany, Pendrel crashed while in fifth place, eventually landing 14th overall.
“I have some confidence in my form but needing a little help on the luck side of things and just for everything to go well in the race to get the results I’m looking for,” says Pendrel.
The challenge for the 2016 World Cup series champion now is to concentrate on details and training. It’s not impossible for Pendrel to repeat, but it’s certainly an uphill battle. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s experienced similar valleys before. She knows that results are somewhat out of her control.
What’s remarkable about Pendrel’s career is the constant improvement she’s exhibited as the sport continues to change and younger competitors begin to arrive.
Proulx says Pendrel has been one of the best riders at adapting to the ever-changing mountain bike landscape because of her attention to detail and ability to find new things to work at that keep her engaged. He jokingly sends her notes once in a while, just to ask when she’ll stop improving.
“What motivates her is that there’s so much potential still left to explore, even as long as she’s been doing this and at her age,” says Proulx.
Her brother agrees.
“If she wants to continue to dominate the sport the way she has, I think she can do that,” says Geoff.
Surely, for a rider that’s experienced it all, there are more peaks still to come.
