Peter Kennaugh

Pursuit Line Podcast

Pete’s Cycling Career

• Pete loved cycling from a young age. That’s what made him work so hard to make a career out of it. His passion. It was internal, he doesn’t feel he was ever pushed too hard externally.

• Pete used to visualize the race all the time, unprompted. He didn't get trained to do this, it was really natural. He would also visualise people who didn’t believe in him or confrontations which annoyed him when he was younger, which he would use to fuel his performance. He was running away from the haters.

• During training, Pete and Ed would often have to do 3 hours of riding on the velodrome as punishment. Ed once had to do a 7 hour long ride! You wouldn’t get away with that today.

• In his early career, Pete knew that even in the worst case scenario he would be happy. He would get booted from the team and would go home to the isle and mann and become a postman, and that was fine. Ed remembers Pete saying this right before the 2012 olympics in a conversation they had. He didn’t always feel the pressure of cycling.

• The decision to retire is like breaking up with someone that you love. Ed got there because he was getting older and couldn’t picture going on. Pete got there cause he lost the love for professional cycling. It was a hard decision for both of them to make, as they love cycling.

• You can feel a big sense of imposter syndrome when going into new roles after retirement. Ed repeats Colin Jackson’s advice from the previous episode: ‘It’s okay not to be great at something in the beginning.’. It’s okay to start again.

• When the pressure of cycling as a profession is gone, the childlike joy comes back. Pete doesn’t cycle as much as he used to though, he doesn’t have the same eagerness for it he had as a kid.

Pete’s early retirement

• The issues came when he stopped doing track, as Pete wasn’t finding it fun without being in groups. After 2012 he started cycling on the road. 2013 was okay because it was all still new, and an injury meant the beginning of the year was slow. He went to a training camp and was eventually picked for the Tour De France, which he absolutely loved. He got a 2 year contract after the tour, but only did one race as his injury came back.

• The pressure came with the contract Pete got after the tour. 2014 was a pressure filled year, as he was getting paid a lot and it started to feel more business-like. He cycled because it was his passion, but when the money got involved he lost his love for it. The money put the burden in there, and he felt scrutinized and watched. He started questioning whether it was for him, or whether he was happy.

• Pete’s mental health and some specific events led to him leaving. He wasn’t sure he wanted to keep going for a while, way back in 2014, but decided with his wife to go with it a bit longer and see whether things got better. Between March and the end of May he would always get these really negative thoughts, that were very overwhelming and he couldn’t see past them. They came back in 2015 and he couldn’t face going on his bike because he was worried bag performance would make him sink deeper.

• Pete did manage to win races when these periods passed, and won the nationals in 2014 and 2015. It would just come back between March and May every year. He kept hoping he could stop it from coming back but it always did, and he would work really hard in winter to keep the momentum going but it just wouldn’t work.

• It got worse every year. Although he would still get good results, between march and the end of may he could barely do 10km on the bike. When it came back in 2018 he decided he was retiring, as he started to lose the power in his legs. He knows now that it was irrational, but he didn’t realise this at the time and he couldn’t be told otherwise.

• Pete, still to this day, doesn’t really know what happened, and doesn’t know why it came every year at the same time.

• Pete’s biggest regret was not checking in with himself at the time he decided to retire. He wasn’t good at slowing down and looking within. It wasn’t a skill he had developed, and he wasn’t in the low pressure environment he felt he needed to be in. He just didn’t have the time.

Pete’s life post sport - Coaching

• Once Pete retired, he finally had the space to reset and reflect. He could finally settle down and focus on self care. He started to understand the world and life more. It gave him perspective. He feels like he took his cycling life for granted at the time, but he is a much nicer person to be around now.

• It took Pete a very long time to let go of being a cyclist. Only in the last 6 months has he truly stopped seeing himself as a professional cyclist.

• If it wasn’t for Andrew McQuaid, Pete doesn’t think he would be where he is today. Andrew McQuaid is Pete’s agent, and really helped him through the darkest moments.

• Pete really enjoys working with young cyclers on Trinity Cycling. He remembers his training days being like university, so he is happy to be with people at that stage in their career. It takes him back to when he was at the academy.

• Pete has found that the way he was taught is embedded in him, and he is finding himself teaching the young riders in the same way. For better or worse.

• You need to be a role model for the behaviours you want to see in others, as a leader. Pete finds he gets his self belief from taking himself seriously and his job seriously. This then reflects into his performance as a coach.

• Pete’s plans for the future are to carry on with Trinity; doing some races with them; do some ITV coverage of the Tour De France, and start his own coaching business.

Takeaways

• It’s important not to push the cyclists too hard when they are young. If you do that they may crash and burn, and lose interest. It needs to be fun.

• If you are not enjoying the talent you are gifted in, it’s not a gift at all.

• When you are in a bad mental space, it can be like an addiction. You don’t want to face or confront your emotions. You don’t want to stop being the way you are. It’s all brushed aside.

• You have to work on your mental health every day.

References:

• Trinity Cycling
• Pete’s Instagram
• Pete’s Twitter
• Pro Noctis Youtube Ch...