Nice to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to read this and some of the ramblings I will be posting.
Before I start to empty my thoughts on various topics onto this platform, I thought I would take the time to introduce myself.
I’m Fiona. I am currently a track cyclist for Team Canada. This is a recent identity change. Let’s rewind a bit. I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and my first sport, which I started at the ripe old age of two, was skiing. I was so small that when my parents lifted me up to put me onto the chairlift, I was lifted straight out of my ski boots. There was no boot small enough, and no buckle tight enough. My love of skiing continued, and I started ski racing. I also, like many kids dabbled in all different sports at school, and enjoyed giving everything a go. I really wanted to pursue ski racing to a high level, but my mum at the time said she’d rather that I didn’t blow out my knees and have multiple concussions before 18. In retrospect, I’m very grateful she steered me away from ski racing. But Fiona at the time, at age 12, was not a happy girl.
Instead, my mum suggested… Tennis! “Tennis??” thought 12 year old Fiona. No speed involved in that. But I gave it a go, and I was surprised to find I really enjoyed it. The technical aspect was both frustrating and challenging at the same time. And once I find something a challenge, it becomes something I need to conquer. I started to take tennis seriously, and it became a goal of mine to get a Div I tennis scholarship in the states. Cue the next 6 years of my live.
Writing this, I realize it seems that sports were always the most important thing to me growing up. This actually wasn’t the case. From when I was very little; earliest I can remember is age two, I have always wanted to be a doctor. I was OBSESSED with anything medical. I used to dress up in my little doctors costume and play hospital with my baby dolls. I had many a baby doll, and all of them had some sort of ailment or bandage. So, while sports were an important part of my life growing up, my main passion was medicine and the thought of being a doctor.
So my goal as I was getting towards the end of high school, was to get a Div I tennis scholarship to a good university in the states to complete my undergraduate degree in pre-med, and then apply to Medical School.
I ended up getting a spot on the University of San Diego Tennis Team, studying behavioural neuroscience. Goal achieved. It was the most amazing year of my life in terms of being able to play varsity tennis on an amazing team in sunny California. In terms of my main goal of getting into med school however, I realized that playing 4-5 hours a day of tennis on top of 5 classes meant that I had absolutely zero free time to do anything, let alone the research and volunteer work required to even be looked at for Med school.
So, I ended up making the decision to come home to Vancouver, to University of British Columbia so that I could focus on academics, and also have the time to work a research job and volunteer. I’d made the decision to be done with competitive sports…
Evidently not…
Fast forward two years. I was almost finished my undergrad at UBC, in integrated sciences. I had already applied for Med school at UBC early, and had gotten an interview, but then gotten waitlisted and didn’t get accepted that first year. I had been running just for fitness while I was at school, so I was still fit. I was in the gym one day, and fell on a kettle bell, and broke a rib. That meant I couldn’t run, the only thing I could do for fitness was spin class. I started spinning at a local indoor cycling studio. I quite enjoyed the whole spinning your legs in circles thing. One of the coaches, who is now my very good friend, said I was pretty fit, and I should do the local Vancouver to Whistler Fondo.
For some reason, I thought that was a good idea, and decided to buy a road bike the day before. I practiced clipping in that night on the grass to make sure I wouldn’t fall flat on my face if I tried to unclip. The next day, I pedalled my little legs up to Whistler, and 122 km later, I made it. New found passion unlocked.
That year, I found out I got into UBC medical school, as was just overjoyed. The global pandemic had just hit, so it was a golden light at the end of a quarantine tunnel. I spent the summer before starting Medical school just riding my bike. I absolutely loved it, and especially during lockdown, it meant I could be outside and with people all day.
Once I started med school, cycling served as a way to escape the 8 hour days on zoom learning about all the body systems. In the spring of first year, I was invited to a high performance camp put on by Cycling BC/Cycling Canada. I was way out of my league in terms of experience and technique, but I was strong. Part of this camp was training on the track. I had never watched a track race in my entire life, let alone ridden a velodrome. But, I like to throw myself head first into things, so I thought; why not, whats there to loose. So, despite it being a 47 degree angle, and me being unconvinced I wouldn’t just fall off it, I learned how to ride the track. No one else in the high performance group could make it the first week, so I had two one-on-one private sessions with Laura Brown, an Olympic Medalist in Team Pursuit. I then spent the next six weeks training with the best cyclists in Western Canada, most of who were on the national team. Talk about out of your depths…
6 months later, after taking the summer to race on the road, I did my first novice track race at the local Burnaby velodrome. I had no race tactics, I just went as hard as I could to beat the 12 year olds I was racing against…
With each race I learned tactics and strategy on the track, and gained confidence. With Laura’s suggestion, I made it my goal to go to Nationals in Milton that January. I spent 3 evenings a week after school going to the track to make sure I was at the level to go and compete at nationals. Thanks to COVID, nationals ended up being cancelled that January, but two months later, in the March, there was a National Team Camp being held in Burnaby that I got an invite to.
I was so excited to be able to take part in this camp, and rode my heart out each day. The week culminated with Western Championships in which we all raced. Everything came together for me that weekend, and I raced really well, and ended up on the podium for all the events. This sufficiently impressed that national team coaches, and it earned me an invited to a Selection Camp for the Milton Nations Cup for team pursuit for Canada.
I ended up riding my way onto the team for the Nations Cup, and was able to pull on the Maple Leaf Jersey for the first time in April 2022. It had all happened in a bit of a whirlwind, going from doing my first ever real track race 6 weeks prior in burnaby to then riding a world cup for team Canada.
We are now here, 18 months later. I am currently on a 2 year leave from Medical School, as I was very fortunate that they were willing to support me in wanting to achieve my goal of going to the Olympics for track cycling. I have competed for Canada now in three world cups, become continental champion in the team pursuit, and also won the gold medal at Pan American Games this past October.
My life now is nothing like I would have imagined a few years ago, having never ridden a bike. I thought I would be just finishing up forth year med school, getting ready to submit my CARMS applications for Residency. Instead I am living out another dream, travelling around the world, racing my bike, and hoping to be selected for the 2024 Paris Olympics. I’ve started this page to share some of my thoughts, on bikes, on medicine, on nutrition, on life.
Welcome to my page, and I hope you enjoy my ramblings.
Fi
So happy to be a part of that amazing cycling journey from the very start 🩶