Canada’s Sean Mackinnon on travel, track and the final 2015-16 World Cup competition in Hong Kong

National team cyclist Sean Mackinnon won two bronze medals at last year’s Pan Am Games in the team pursuit and individual time trial. In this week’s blog he talks about his trip over to Hong Kong for this weekend’s World Cup Track event.

It is a bit early this morning, but I still got my athlete-approved nine hours of sleep. I am here in Hong Kong getting ready to race the third and final World Cup of the 2015-16 track season, our last chance to try and move up in the world standings before this year’s world championship in London, which takes place in March.

I have never been to Asia, nor experienced a 16-hour non-stop flight. In theory, it should be better than a 24-plus hour travel day, but it doesn’t seem that way once you’re sitting for nine hours and the map tells you that you are just getting halfway there—all to race a bike.

One of the highlights—and sometimes one of the low points—of travelling is the accommodation that we stay at. This week we have definitely scored on the highlight end of things. Since I was 11 I have been ranking accommodations based on a hotel we stayed at in Germany on a family holiday, when my dad was covering the Ironman there. Breakfast came to our door every morning and I lived in the housecoat that somehow ended up cleaned and hanging back up when I came back. I remember freaking out when we would walk downstairs and someone would disappear and return with our car moments later.

Flew literally over the arctic on the way to Hong Kong! Didn't see a polar bear though 🙁 pic.twitter.com/pE6eDFUMJF

— Sean Mackinnon (@smackinn) January 11, 2016

That experience has ruined me when it comes to hotels ever since. Sometimes, though, we manage to score. This week here in Hong Kong I think my German hotel is going to have a run for its money.

This weekend at the World Cup I will be racing the team pursuit with Adam Jamieson, Aidan Caves, Remi Pelletier-Roy and Jay Lamoureux, and we will be trying to crack the top eight. If we can qualify in the top eight on Friday, that means we will get two more rides this weekend, something we have yet to do while racing the world cups the past two seasons.

Along with that race I will also be racing the points race. My last points race, at the Pan Am championships, was pretty successful as I finished second, so I am hoping to put up a solid ride.

Right now, though, Adam and I are counting down the minutes until we can start the day. They are not coming fast. Hopefully we will still be this awake for our training session on the track. So far so good here in Hong Kong; the countdown to race day has started. Three days to go.

Hotel spin on our #Aquila bikes in Hong Kong! pic.twitter.com/HLMfSt8BtE

— Sean Mackinnon (@smackinn) January 12, 2016

Friday: Racing

Track World Cups are always an exciting event to be a part of. Not only are you racing with some of the very best in the world, but it doesn’t get any bigger when it comes to track racing.

This weekend I competed in the team pursuit and the points race, which, all in all, were okay. Unfortunately I had a bit of bad luck off the start of the team pursuit: I got stuck on the line when my holder didn’t let go and had to chase back on, switching from third man to fourth along the way, which made it a tough ride from the start. We managed to keep things moving and put out a ride that was good for 12th. Not quite what we were hoping for, but with a problem right from the start I am happy we managed to still get the job done.

The whole team rode really well and left everything out on the track. Team pursuit is a strange event – we train for this four-minute-and-change effort basically every day, but each time we race we learn so much more. With our experiences this weekend we will all be ready to have another crack at worlds this year.

The points race later that evening came a little quicker than I was expecting. It was my fourth-ever points race and, once again like earlier in the day, I got a lot of experience from a 40 km race. With a small field the bunch went basically flat out the entire race, not wanting to let anyone take a lap, and fighting it out in the sprints down to the last available point.

After trying to sneak away early and picking up some points off the front, I ran out of energy pretty quick and suffered through the later stages of the race, but was happy with my ninth-place finish. It was a great experience and I am really happy to have had the opportunity to race with some world-class bunch racers.

I am looking forward to getting back home. This 10 day trip across the world has been great, but I am ready to rest up and get back to training with the final push to the end of the track season so near. At the end of the month I will head down to California for a few weeks before heading back back into one last track camp before we head over to London for the world championships.