Haley Smith
Mind on the ride
Haley Smith has been with Norco for six years. It’s been her home since she started riding competitively. In a sense, she and the team have grown together. In 2017, the focus moved from more domestic events, such as Canada Cups, to World Cups abroad.
Smith had a good 2017 season. She finished third at nationals behind Emily Batty and Catharine Pendrel. Smith was pleased that even though those riders were ahead of her, she didn’t fade behind them as the race progressed. At worlds, she finished 16th. This year, there’s Commonwealth Games, her first major multi-sport event. In the fall, Smith hopes to return once again to the world championships. You have a background in dance and hockey, yes? From the time I started walking until I went to university, I was a high-level hockey player and dancer. Ballet was the backbone to the dancing.
How did you get from those disciplines to mountain biking? My dad and brother had started to mountain bike when I was younger. They used to do 24-hour races. When I was in the eighth grade, my brother was going to a high school championships, and they needed a girl for the team relay. The deal was that if I rode the team relay, I could skip a day of school. That was my first real time on a mountain bike.
I started to re-find mountain biking near the end of high school. When I went university, hockey stopped because I wasn’t going to play varsity. Dance also stopped at that time. Then I pursued mountain biking more. It was kind of organic because my family did it.
Do you see any connections between mountain biking, and dance and hockey? Dance is about flow and being present in the moment. When I’m on the trail, the way I think isn’t in words or in conscious thought, but I think kinesthetically. It gives me the same feelings as dance used to give me, the same sort of emotions.
Hockey taught me how to be the toughest version of myself. You have to have that in mountain biking as well. If you’re not willing to put your fear aside or your selfdoubt aside, you can’t do it: you can’t ride obstacles or the climbs. There’s also power. I’ve always been a punchy rider, a good starter. That comes from hockey. You’ve written for this magazine on the topic of mindfulness. What is your mindfulness activity of choice at the moment? Bike riding is always one of them. In trail riding, you have to be present, or you’ll end up face down. I’m also doing Headspace. It’s an app for guided meditation. I do that everyday for 10 to 20 minutes. I find that really helpful.
I feel you were ahead of the curve with mindfulness. [ Laughs.] I think maybe I was on the hipster edge of the curve. But that was how I learned to deal with my mental problems. I’d still be very sick if I hadn’t been introduced to this.
Tell me more about that. I had been developing anxiety problems when I was eight years old. When I was in ninth grade, the anxiety became about three things: sleep, perfection and food. The food progressed until I had to be hospitalized for anorexia. Afterwards, I had outpatient therapy, but I didn’t find that helped me very much. I didn’t really start to get better until I started to mountain bike.
My aunt also started taking me to yoga. Mindfulness is a pretty key part of a yoga practice: being present with your breath. I don’t know if I called it mindfulness at that point. Probably, when I went to university, I started to call it mindfulness and to learn other techniques.
What technical element of your riding have you been working on? I’m always working on everything. But the biggest mental block for me is air time when there’s a hole in the middle, going over a gap. My dad built me a jump in my backyard, a tabletop jump where the table in the middle is a door. Over the past year, I’ve been hitting it and working up the courage to take the door out. So, I can do it without the door now.
“In trail riding, you have to be present, or you’ll end up face down.”