This weekend was the "Ziggy Gnarly" Canada Cup in Canmore, Alberta. We flew in to Calgary Thursday night and headed to the Stampede to check out the early edition before heading to Canmore Friday morning.

The course in Canmore is hard but amazing with wicked descents and steep climbs. This is by far one of my favourite race courses in the year because of how technical the riding. The singletrack is riddled with roots, rocks, stumps, and that is all before the "Coal Chute" which is a relatively steep, very loose section with black dirt that involves skill at "surfing" on the bike. The climbs are all under 8 minutes, but each lap has 400m of climbing, so they are relatively short, but steep.

Everything felt great for the pre-ride, technical skills were all in sync, the climbs (besides being a bit out of breath at the end) weren't too painful, and the course was in great shape!

On race day the temperature was somewhere around 20 degrees. The whistle went off and the race was led out by Jean Anne McKirdy and Melanie McQuaid. The first climb felt ok, and the descent felt really good, but as soon as I hit the second climb my legs had nothing left. I spent the next 2 laps going as fast and pushing as hard as I could on the descents but then suffering up the climbs with flat, unresponsive legs to finish up in 12th.

Though my legs didn't want to work, I focussed on descending as fast and as smoothly as I could and improved my course time by 10 minutes-not too bad for a year's worth of training. I finished the race happy to have finished, and ready for next week's BC Cup at Burnaby Mountain to see how my legs feel after another week of recovery from Kamloops and a solid ride at Canmore.

Below are the results for the women's and men's fields in the race. Congrats to Mical for winning the race for a second year in a row and improving her time by 3 minutes!

Elite Women - 24.9km
1. Mical Dyck (AB) Terrascape/Trek 1:36:57
2. Melanie Mcquaid (BC) Natures Path-BMC at 2:00
3. Jean Ann McKirdy (BC) Rocky Mountain Bikes 2:53
4. Joanna Harrington (BC) Fineline Ride Shop, Whistler 6:13
5. Catherine Vipond (ON) Norco Evolution Team 7:00
6. Danelle Kabush (AB) Luna Women's Mountain Bike Team 8:34
7. Marie-Claude Surprenant (QC) ÉQUIPE DU QUÉBEC / Sportif Bromont 16:19
8. Andrea Bunnin (SK) Spoke'n Sport/ Kona 17:07
9. Pepper Harlton (AB) Juventus 17:45
10. Lisa Morgan (NZl) PNP Cycling Club 19:41
11. Mandy Dreyer (ON) Freewheel Cycle 21:35
12. Joele Guynup (BC) Island Racing Club 22:25
13. Erica Musyj (SK) BCW 24:19
14. Krystyn Ong (AB) Juventus 25:05
15. Margie Smith (AB) wilson mountain sports 27:22

Elite Men - 33.2km
1. Tim Heemskerk (AB) United Cycle Team. 1:48:23
2. Martin Lazarski (BC) Rocky Mountain K Capital Source at 0:45
3. Stefan Widmer (BC) Rocky Mountain/K-Capitol Source 1:45
4. Raphael Gagne (QC) Rocky Mountain 2:07
5. Matthew Hadley (NB) XPREZO 4:23
6. Julien Fillion (QC) Équipe du Québec / Fillion-VM 4:37
7. Craig Richey (BC) Oak Bay Bikes 5:21
8. Colin Kerr (BC) dtfferent bikes 6:14
9. Francis Morin (QC) Specialized/ Team Quebec 8:07
10. Steve Gaffney (AB) Independant 9:07
11. Daniel Sessford (YK) Blue Competition Cycles 9:41
12. Matt Green (BC) Rocky Mountain - K Capital Source 10:34
13. Mark Fenner (AB) SCUM 12:15
14. Andre Sutton (AB) Hardcore Cycling Club 12:42
15. John Gray (NZL) Rotorua MTB 12:50
16. Andrew Thomas (SK) Team Sask / ERTC 13:40
17. Brian Bain (AB) Cyclemeisters/Bowcycle 14:04
18. Cody Canning (AB) ERTC/Revolution Cycle 14:30
19. Cameron Jette (ON) TEAM TREK STORE 16:00
20. Dallas Morris (AB) Team H&R Block 16:17
21. Manuel Fehlmann (BC) Balance Point Racing Team 17:08
22. Kyle Douglas (ON) 3 Rox Racing 17:56
23. Thomas Skinner (BC) Rocky Mountain - K Capital Source 18:26
24. Ryan Atkins (ON) Ironwood Racing 18:35
25. Simon Tremblay (BC) Giant, Summit Cycles 19:20
26. Aroussen Laflamme (QC) Webcor-Alto-Velo-Kona Endurance 21:01
27. Cory Zetterstrom (SK) BCW 22:55
28. Cameron McKnight (AB) ERTC - Revolution Cycle 26:09
29. Shawn Bunnin (AB) Bicisport 26:19
30. Mike Bidniak (AB) Team Alberta 29:38
DNF . Michael Mitchnick (ON) Team Trek Store
DNF . Frederic Bussieres (QC) Xprezo/ Aviawest
DNF . Duncan Gavin (BC) Different Bikes
DNF . Drew Mackenzie (BC) IRC p/b Cameron Law
DNF . Brad Tilby (BC) Star and Garter Wheelers