Mat Bilodeau

Now I Want a Medal

By InnerVoice

May 26^th, 2017

I'm FREE

To be honest with you the 2017 season has been tough. I am trying to reach the top level by only focusing on race walking. It is a big adaptation. I am used to biking, swimming, and doing some cross-country skiing during the winter. This year I decided to go to Australia to do the high-fat diet with one of the best nutritionists in the world. I wanted to learn from her. I think I just tried to do too much and changed all of my surroundings and my training schedule at the same time.

In addition, I wanted to establish myself in Vancouver. I backed off a little bit and now I can feel that I am back on track. I have been race walking for only 3 years now, so when I do have consecutive bad days I just go for a long bike ride or a swim. I started this routine just a couple of weeks ago and I am already feeling better. I am not the usual race walker; I get bored of doing the same thing over and over. So, by switching things around I feel more powerful and happy. It is always good to ride Stanley Park, Horseshoe Bay or climb Cypress Mountain. I have a feeling of freedom and it is good for my mental health.

unfinished business

During the Olympic Games, I did not finish the race due to heat stroke. I was very disappointed in myself. I realised that there was more than just training. I had to take into consideration the amount of carbs I take when I race, the food I eat, the drinks, the heat – everything. I didn’t know if I had the resources to get all the information I needed. At 33, I also didn’t know if I wanted to embark on another 4-year cycle knowing the sacrifices it would take to get back to the Olympics. To achieve this, I’d need to continue to put my career as an accountant on hold. When I returned to Canada after the Games, I had this conversation with my wife and she said 'I cannot picture you sitting on the couch and watching the 50km race walk in Tokyo, it feels wrong.' All of a sudden, I pictured myself on the couch, started laughing and said “you’re right!” I know that I have not accomplished everything I want to accomplish as an athlete and I needed to give it another shot.

I wanted to be an Olympian

I have always been into sport and competed at national and international level. Triathlon, Xterra, running, swimming, cross-country skiing and mountain bike - you name it. In 2011, my wife and I moved to Alberta to pursue our professional careers but the fire inside to become an Olympian would not be extinguished. It was at this time that I had the crazy idea of trying race walking. I knew endurance events were my forte and race walking has the longest distance event in the Olympic Games, 50km. In 2014, I started training and competing with one goal in mind; making the 2016 Olympic team. Not a lot of people believed that I could do it, but as long as I believed in it I knew I had a chance. It hasn’t been an easy road as race walking is very unpopular in North America, but I enjoyed every minute of it and when I stood on the start line in Rio, I knew I had accomplished a lot in only 3 years.

my wife is always there

I think my family always saw me as a decent athlete, but until Rio, it was nothing over the top. I had changed sports so many times that I didn’t have a chance to prove what I really worth in a specific sport. My wife has always been very supportive. She is a former national-level swimmer and she knows what it takes to be the best. As an athlete, we’ve all dreamed about the Olympics at one point in our athletic career, and she often says that she knew she would not make it as an athlete but being able to support me at another level is also realising her dream. She was there in Rio to support me.

At work, I was always seen as the athlete, and my colleagues were impressed by my performances even if they didn’t know anything about race walking. The biggest impact was during the year leading to the Olympics where my colleagues organised different events at work to support me. This was great as it also raised awareness about race walking and it created a new atmosphere at work.

“I’ve always wanted to be an Olympian. I was talking about it all the time and nothing was more important than being at the start line at the Olympics. I made it, but now I want to win a medal!”

i focus on myself

If I couldn’t compete anymore I would be disappointed because I like to train and race, but this is not my only life. I have always maintained a ‘normal’ life while I am training. Seven years ago I graduated as a CPA-CMA and I’ve worked full-time while training full-time for my entire life. In fact, in Calgary, I would wake up at 4:30 am, race walk to work (roughly 30km), my wife would wait for me with my clothes and lunch, I would go to work for 8 hours and train again at night. I always believed in a work-life balance and I had my greatest results when I was not only focusing on race walking.

I am really independent. I do all my workouts on my own, except for the weekends when my wife is on her bike next to me. She is there regardless of the weather to give me my drinks during long walks. I like it when she’s there with me. During the race that I qualified for Rio, the last 5km was quite difficult so I started thinking of my wife and how she paced me with her bike, and it helped me finish the race strongly.

Race walking is not very popular in Canada so there wasn’t a specific athlete to model myself on. However, when I am into something I research and I read a lot about the subject. To be honest with you, I do not care much about the other competitors, I am terrible with names and rankings. I focus on myself and do what is the best for me. I have learned this from my former coach Gilles Rocca.

i need to trust myself

I have two major role models. Jan Frodeno: he is just a training machine and when I feel down I watch his Specialized training day on YouTube and his race at the Challenge Roth. I know race walking is different from Ironman but for motivation, it is what is working the best for me. I am also following the cross-country ski World Cup during my off-season. I am so impressed by Alex Harvey. It is amazing that he can bounce back from a tough race and the next day he’s on the podium. I find a lot of motivation watching him when I am doing intervals on the treadmill.

That said, I need to trust myself and do what is the best for me. I have tried to many times to copy successful athletes and I hit the wall every single time. As I said, I am from a different background, a different shape and a different life situation - CPA, married, older than the usual Olympian - so I won’t become better if I tried to change. So, if I don’t want to race a 20 km, or I want to ride one day, I’ll just do it. It is mental but I do not see any negative impact on my training. It is way better to train happy than training for the sake of training.