Catharine Pendrel, a three-time Olympian and 2016 Bronze medalist mountain biker, became a new mom this year. In this episode, Sonya and Catharine discuss training during pregnancy, process-oriented goals, overcoming adversity during the pandemic, and more.
Pendrel grew up riding horses and later bicycles in Canada. In addition to her Olympic appearances, she has two World Championship titles for Canada and 40 World Cup podium finishes. She lives and trains in Kamloops, British Columbia, and races professionally for the Clif Pro Team.
In 2017, Pendrel and her husband Keith Wilson formed Pendrel Racing, a cross-country mountain bike development team created to provide opportunities for the next generation of Canadian mountain bike racers.
“I think everyone experiences self-doubt. I guess, for me, I’ve actually enjoyed racing a lot more this year than I’ve actually had the two previous seasons I raced because I was a lot more gentle on myself in my expectations. That’s not to say I didn’t do everything I could to perform at the highest level… but also recognizing just that the lead up wasn’t perfect. You do go home and you go home to a baby, you don’t go home to put your feet up and watch Netflix or whatever your competition might be doing to recover. You realize that you are working with a different set of circumstances and beating yourself up isn’t going to make you faster. If you can think of some concrete ways to change what you’re doing to improve performance, you do that. If you have to handle being a little further back than you might like to be but you have an awesome family that is traveling with you to these races and you have that unique opportunity then that’s pretty special and that’s definitely more special than the results.”
– Catharine Pendrel
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Key Takeaways
- Process oriented goals
- Adversity during the pandemic
- Approaching training during pregnancy
- Returning to the sport after a C-section
- Returning to racing with a baby
- Shifting expectations
- Dealing with self-doubt
- Olympics
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Links
- Listen to this podcast episode of CLIFcast with Catharine.
- Liked this episode? Listen to other episodes about mindset, motivation & psychology
- Check out my Substack about high-performance mindset
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