For most experts over 35, the query of retirement and ‘Why proceed?’ is one which just about at all times comes up in post-season interviews. Ought to they decide to go racing, they’re going to seemingly cite an excellent profession aim – Mark Cavendish and the well-known ‘Challenge 35’ Tour de France levels could be a working example – or just cite the actual fact they nonetheless take pleasure in racing and feeling motivated to compete.
However within the case of Mavi García, 41 subsequent January, her most important cause to maintain on racing is barely totally different. Regardless of her veteran standing – she is about to be skilled biking’s oldest racer within the girls’s peloton in 2025 – the Liv-AIUIa-Jayco rider feels there’s nonetheless room for her to enhance. And in that sense, if she’s not reached her higher restrict as a racer, then somewhat than ask herself the query ‘Why proceed?’, the way more acceptable subject is – ‘Why cease?’
“On this line of labor at the very least, getting higher is a unending course of,” García explains to Cyclingnews throughout a sequence of interviews previous to the Queens of the Alhambra race in Granada, at present Spain’s sole women-only criterium.
“You are continuously realising issues, bettering issues, discovering out concerning the belongings you’re doing badly, the belongings you’re doing properly. So perhaps because of beginning my profession late, I by no means really feel like I’ve received all of it discovered. In actual fact, typically I feel the day I determine to retire would be the one once I begin considering I have not received something left to be taught.
“It is not nearly merely using your bike, both. Areas like racecraft and race technique – you by no means cease studying and bettering. There are at all times 1,000 issues which you could have a look at and try to enhance.”
García additionally says a part of the training course of is just not at all times about transferring into new terrain. Her personal stressed quest for the unimaginable state of perfection might be about delving into older initiatives or methods, and figuring out methods to do them higher.
“So this yr, for instance, I’ve gone again to a earlier thought that an enormous quantity of quantity in coaching, dropping off the depth a bit and upping the hours and elevation achieve, might be actually good for me,” she says. “In coaching, I’ve come to understand, it is all about getting precisely the fitting stability.”
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On condition that García continues to be discovering her higher ceiling as a racer, she says, “That pushes me on, retains me motivated, significantly as my endurance stage continues to be as sturdy as ever at the very least, and typically it is bettering. So all it takes is a little bit of fine-tuning within the different areas, and I do know I can do higher.”
Nonetheless Spain’s prime racer
Going into 2024, García discovered herself going through a doable problem with the fusion of her former crew, LIV, with Jayco AIUIa. However in truth, the way in which the 2 groups joined forces has labored out “extraordinarily properly,” she says.
“The yr has been very totally different by way of the fabric, we use, nevertheless it’s all been an enchancment, so the difference has not been an issue,” she says with a smile. “Issues are rather well organised, too, in order that lets you keep calm.
“In actual fact, I would say 2024 has been my greatest by way of efficiency for a really very long time, nevertheless it’s not at all times been doable to show that into outcomes.”
If the Grand Excursions didn’t work out in addition to she needed, on the plus facet for García in 2024, she factors to an awesome begin within the UAE Tour, taking third total, and her sixth-place end within the Olympic Video games street race. A stage victory and an total win within the Vuelta a Andalucia did no hurt to her palmares both. All this in a yr when García has taken half in additional races than ever earlier than, and with the Olympics because the undoubted spotlight of the season.
“The Olympics wasn’t a circuit that was one of the best for me, nevertheless it wasn’t so dangerous, both. I am at all times getting categorized as a rider who solely does properly on lengthy climbs, in truth as we noticed in Glasgow within the Worlds final yr the place I did higher than lots of people anticipated, I can carry out properly on these punchy, hilly circuits, too,” explains García.
“It is true that the Olympic circuit wasn’t as onerous because it might have been, however the way in which the race was ridden made it a lot more durable, anyway. Mentally I used to be very ready for it, too and it got here out properly.
“I am in no way sad with the season, it wasn’t nearly as good as I would have favored, however I am unable to actually price it negatively.”
In actual fact, relating to constantly being within the combine at races, García, 9 occasions a Nationwide Champion, (5 within the street race, 4 within the time trial) stays the nation’s prime girls’s professional. Sandra Alonso (Ceratizit-WNT), winner of the Guangxi WorldTour race this October is one new identify to comply with and Junior Street Race World’s silver medallist Paula Ortiz is one other, however they’re solely very just lately getting on prime of their sport. In the meantime, García continues to be her sport’s reference level, in spite of everything she might be 41 subsequent yr.
Plans for 2025
Her 2025 race program and goals have but to be settled on utterly, with the Nationwide Championships, her talisman race, one which she is constantly good at, however which she reveals, in truth, is much more hit or miss than her wonderful run of outcomes may counsel.
“I do not ever get to the Nationals’ at 100% as a result of it is a part of the build-up for the Grand Excursions that come afterwards, just like the Giro d’Italia,” García says.
“I at all times go there straight off altitude coaching and also you by no means understand how that first race after altitude goes to go. It is nonetheless the Nationals, although, and clearly, I’m going there to win. However it’s not an obsession.
“The 2025 Worlds, although, are going to be very particular and attention-grabbing for me with a lot climbing and being at altitude. I simply hope it is not chilly, even when it rains.
“In any case, I do not wish to put an excessive amount of stress on myself, as a result of the World’s this yr [2024] have been very disappointing. I used to be in nice form, however the climate was so dangerous and so chilly that I needed to stop. So we’ll see about 2025.”
No matter her race plans for 2025, García already is aware of that her low season coaching might be more durable than different years, in a bid to do even higher than her wonderful 2024 begin and enhance on a few of these early podium locations she obtained final spring.
“I am going into the low season in excellent form, I’ve ready these previous few races rather well. The one cause I’ve not had the outcomes I would have favored to get is due to having to experience them in chilly, moist climate. I can deal with the chilly OK however when it rains so much as properly, my physique blocks up and I am no good,” continues García.
“So being in such good situation, I am actually motivated to hit the bottom working subsequent spring. I am going to perhaps even have much less of a relaxation this winter than normal, simply to strive to make certain.”
Whereas García says that she continues to be altering as a racer and altering her methods in her quest for enchancment, the game itself is just not the one she found when she turned professional again in 2015, both. That is partly due, she says, to the ladies’s peloton being a lot larger and with extra younger riders within the motion, too, “racing is much more hectic.”
“I used to be speaking about this with Elisa” – Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), additionally participating within the Reinas de la Alhambra occasion – “and we agreed, there isn’t any ‘down time’ like there was once in racing. It is flat out from begin to end now. It is totally different, for certain, however I do not thoughts – I am adapting to that.”
Amongst these up-and-coming information riders, after all, there are the brand new Spanish names like Ortiz, and García says that understanding that different Spanish riders will choose up each time she lastly leaves racing is a pleasing feeling to have. “Now I really feel like I am going to be capable of sit down on the couch and watch them placing in some nice rides on TV,” she says.
However for all retirement is simply across the nook, and she or he is clearly not considering too lengthy and onerous about it.
“The tip of my profession is coming, however I do not wish to put a date on it, it is in no way sure, significantly as I am doing so properly,” is how García places it.
“I nonetheless take pleasure in using a motorbike, I do not do it simply to see my identify within the race program, or for the cash. Coaching day-after-day would not put me off.
“It is true that some folks have a problem with that, nevertheless it’s one thing I like, one thing I did even once I was not a full-time professional and dealing in different jobs. So I’ve at all times thought it was one thing good to do.
“After all, I am fascinated with what I can do in my life past skilled biking. However as sport is at all times going to be a part of it, proper now issues just like the query of my age and persevering with to race simply do not matter.”
Fairly, a stressed, relentless quest for locating the perfect option to be one of the best skilled she will presumably be is what’s holding García on monitor – and in her case, racing into her forties is just one thing that goes with that individual territory.
