Mighty Magali

There was more going on during the Holidays! In the Christmas blog, I mentioned that I didn’t have time for shoveling snow (thankfully) and cross country skiing (poor me!). But I didn’t mention why!! It is not  that I was busy sippin’ on hot cocoa and looking out the window….

It was that I was busy becoming….UNBREAKABLE!!!

Presenting GLORYFY. The Unbreakable sunglasses.

The day after I landed in Montreal, I met with Jacques LaGarde from Sport Dinaco* (Jacques is a great guy, representing a company that has introduced some of the best products on the Canadian market today. Gloryfy, the –unbreakable- sunglasses are one of the latest products, that they are distributing in Canada. The glasses have been available in Canada  only since June 2012 and offer a new concept in top of the line sunglasses. They are the most unique and high quality sunglasses I have ever tried. I met Jacques earlier in the year and he had introduced me to the very unique brand of Sunglasses that has already made a very big BOOM in Austria and in the European…

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Hi everyone!

I am back and warming up the engine again after some good, healthy down time during the off season!

Yes it was quite a long off season for me but that ended up being a good thing. I got to visit my family back east and recharge the batteries. And… I made the trip with Alice, as usual, she had to see her brothers and sisters!

(Alice visiting -the PACK!-)

Alice being patient at the airport on the way to Montreal. What a good girl…

Ever wonder how she manages bathroom breaks at the airport on long trips?

From St-Sauveur, Qc, Mom and I picked up the Grandparents who live nearby and drove all the way to Haliburton, Ontario to spend Christmas time with my sister and her family. It was quite a long drive but we had a very nice one night stop in Ottawa on the itinerary. It was part of the Christmas present to spend a day all together at the hotel there and it was very much appreciated……

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The decision that turned things around:

As you may know from earlier posts, I re-united with my first pro coach, Lance Watson, in the middle of the season.

(Last pre-race talk of the season, with Lance before Xterra worlds.)

All my life I have been chasing adventure, change, excitement and challenge. Most times, I have achieved this feeling by moving on and trying different things. I have explored a wide range of possible life paths (at one point, I was an aspiring actress, living in Paris (quite different from now HEY?)). After a while, FINALLY, I was relieved to stop chasing activities. I had found my place after all, in a sport called triathlon. It was a beautiful feeling after all that time searching in the extremes and getting closer to defining ME. Little did I know, within the sport, the same process would take place. I explored one option after the other to find the best and quickest way to excell and make the best of my athletic potential. I moved from Quebec to Victoria and when I…

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Pre-race

Pro women Swim Start

I had heard it many times from coaches: If it’s not going your way and it feels like you want to call it a day,  turn off the brain, rev up the engine and just stick with it.  Some races have a way of shifting. Sometimes, worst days can even turn into best days.  I wasn’t able to truly understand this until I –lived- it last Sunday, at 70.3 worlds. Well…it was more like a worst day turned into an okay day.  But I am convinced that the lesson I learned from it will one day lead to my best.

Last year, I was placed before a very similar challenge. At the same race, on the same course. And I failed dramatically. I pulled out.  Last year, the pressure of having to better two consecutive podium finishes at worlds in 2009 and 2010, and the feeling that I wasn’t in the shape necessary to better the result became a self destruction cocktail.  When things were going so terribly, my motivation evaporated.…

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Picture from last week-end at the Sooke International Chase race (Vancouver Island).

After Calgary 70.3, mom and I flew home together. We had two weeks together in St-Sauveur at home (the place we call: -La Charmille-). Training was not too tough (mostly back to volume focus) and I got to enjoy time with mom, the occasional breakfasts at the corner coffee shop, swimming at my favorite little lake, time in the sun and walks by the river with Alice and her 4 cousins (mom’s 4 weiner dogs). It was not until the last day there that I discovered the hidden trail paradise.  One afternoon, mom and I went to visit one of her good friends from their Skiing days. This friend has tried about every sport in the world and is quite good at…all of them. We sat down with him for a chat and I mentioned to Francois that I needed some NEW. I wanted to find new places to train, I felt like I didn’t know my own training grounds. Francois was surprised and made me realize…

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I think a few things helped me get the effort of which I am most proud of this year:

-Finding the right focus (before and during the race)

-Physical preparation I was confident about. Confidence building training sessions that I precisely understood and that I could trust because numbers don’t lie.

-Knowing that it is not necessary to build up too much anxiety on race morning. You can show up relaxed, happy and do better.We are already programmed to go hard when the gun goes off and we have to trust that. It was so much more fun this way and it is the way I was mentally strongest.

-Knowing that the race is part of a bigger plan and that one result can’t make or break me and knowing that my coach knows my true potential and shares my vision.

I have never been so relaxed before the start of a race. I was taking in the moment. It was just beautiful Sunday morning at Ghost lake. It was a double transition race, which I love. We…

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It has been a month filled with adventure, it has changed me and helped me reach new levels of confidence and self belief.

Not goodbye. Just see you again soon. After Tremblant 70.3, I headed to California to pack my bags and empty my apartment. I have taken the decision to be based at home in Quebec and to travel to Victoria (or to other destinations for camps) at key moments in the year to train one on one with my coach, Lance Watson. The week I spent in Santa Monica, packing and recovering after Tremblant, was special. I realized it wasn’t going to be easy to leave the Los Angeles area. My heart is filled with such great memories of the time spent there with Team Sirius and the only way I found to feel a little lighter was to tell myself: I have now discovered a place that I will always come back to. One of the great reasons to go back to train there is coach Gerry Rodrigues. Here is why Gerry is one of the best in the world: http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Gerry_Rodrigues. I know

…

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Something would happen one day on this mountain and it is like I always knew it had to…

Growing up, sometimes, it felt like I was attracted in a certain direction. Through music, sport, I went through phases. One -obsession of the moment- lead to another and I was consumed by many passions. I wished I had a life for each of them. Somehow, through it all, my life path felt like a continuum. An artist at first (with Violin), I grew into an athlete, convinced that life would guide me to my perfect place of happiness, a place I would find ME. I was constantly refining a search for my place in life. The place where I would succeed and  become a champion in my heart. I just followed inspiration and gravitated towards what felt the most natural and fun and as long as I was doing that, I had a feeling I was on my life path and on the way to finding my true identity.

Amazingly enough, a big part of this personal search took place on…

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Hi everyone. I have a lot to cover in this blog. In the past few weeks, I have started organizing my life very differently.

I have taken a hard decision and left Siri and the team to try a different approach to training. Siri is no doubt one of the world’s leading coaches and has given me so much energy and knowledge to make me grow as an athlete. I will take this forward on the journey. It has helped me grow and always will.

For several reasons, I have decided to go back to Lance Watson (from Lifesport), the first coach I had as a professional and to move back home to Quebec, to be closer to my family. I had a very good base of work with Siri and finished off with a better race in Wildflower (where I took third place). I then came back home here and started to work differently. It was hard for a week or so, mostly emotionally because I have grown very close to Siri and the team. I decided to…

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I couldn’t have wished for a better race to FINALLY have a good day at, this season. Wildflower is a race where great champions have left their mark. It is a grueling course but a beautiful course. It a tough race but a fun race. An -old school- race that incarnates the spirit of our sport so perfectly. I am so glad that it was that race that gave me my first true smile of the season.

I was definitely an underdog last Saturday morning before the Wildflower half. I can’t say my season had been going as planned until that point. Since January, I had been in Santa Monica working my butt off, mostly in the swim. Training was going quite well and I had high hopes for the season to come. Little did I know I was about to get a pretty solid reality check. It seems like for a few weeks, my lucky star had left my side. I’m not quite sure why life wanted it that way for me but I do have a theory on…

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