Leighton Poidevin continued his family’s summer of cycling success, while Nadine Mueller was untouchable at the Grizzly 50 kilometre mountain bike marathon on Oct. 4 at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
Inspired by watching his daughter Sara compete at the cycling world championships in Spain, Poidevin didn’t miss a beat on the 50 km course, leading the race from tape to tape to win the race in 2:28:25, seven minutes ahead of second-place Brad Danielson of Edmonton, and 10 minutes ahead of Canmore’s Darren Freeman.
“I haven’t raced in a while. It was nice to get back on the bike and see how it’s working out,” Poidevin said.
He separated from the pack early on, and used his climbing skills to open up a good lead by the midway mark. He didn’t have much of a strategy heading in, other than stay ahead.
“I just got in my own rhythm and went,” Poidevin said.
Coming off of a strong weekend at the Kaslo Sufferfest in B.C. – a big climb race basically tailor made for Poidevin, he said he’s spent more of his time fixing his daughter’s bikes, and watching Sara have an incredible year.
“She had a great season. Watching the race (at world champs), I was bummed out from the crash, but it’s been a good year for her,” Poidevin said.
He followed up the race with a strong performance at the Moab Rocks three-day race in Utah, where he won the 40-plus men’s category by 23 minutes.
Mueller, a four-time winner of Canmore’s 24 Hours of Adrenalin, signed up for the race so she could chase back-to-back Grizzly wins in the run and bike (see related story page 29). Training for the Xterra triathlon world championships, she used self-talk and visualization techniques to power her through the long climbs.
“Since I’m always chasing swimmers in triathlons, I just pretend there are people out of the water ahead of me, so I’m chasing imaginary swimmers,” Mueller said. “When I’m doing long races, I go into my own world. It’s all mental. You talk to yourself. You encourage yourself.”
The 50 km Grizzly is divided into five legs, and all have significant climbs which total 5,000 feet. Luckily for Mueller, climbing is one of her strengths.
“The first leg is a good warmup. The second is relentless climbing. The third, I think (race organizer Tony Smith) picked the hardest climbs. It’s not often anyone goes up the coal chutes,” Mueller said.
Conditions were nearly perfect and the trail was well marked, Mueller said, even though she did take one small wrong turn. That helped her reach a goal of a sub three-hour race, as she finished in 2:54. It was her first win with new sponsor Mud, Sweat and Gears.
“I do feel pretty heavy. At the beginning, you’re heavy because you have all of your stuff, and at the end you’re heavy because you’re so tired,” Mueller said.
