7/19/08: Mt. Evans Hill Climb

The weather was beautiful for the 2008 edition of the Mt. Evans Hill Climb. Definitely windier - which played a part in the substantially slower finish times at every level of racing - but not a cloud in the sky. Despite PRing being out of the question, tactics would play a big part in the race's final outcome.

The magnitude of this climb never ceases to amaze me. The race starts in Idaho Springs at 6,700 feet and finishes atop the highest paved road in the US at just north of 14,200 feet. All in all, just over 28 miles from start to finish. The average gradient is just shy of 5% with the steepest parts coming in the second half of the race and the final 3.5 miles punctuated by never-ending switchbacks. Above treeline, especially, there is nowhere to hide.

Feedback Sports entered the race within reach of the BAT (Best All-around Team) title. Spine & Sport has raced well all season and has largely led the BAT competition from the early stages of the season. Feedback, however, is clearly a better climbing team and we showed it here at Evans by placing 5 riders in the top 20 to Spine & Sport's one (note: only the top 3 placed riders count for the BAT competition).

The race itself went pretty well. I really can't have any complaints. I ended up 4th. Our team ended up 1-2-4-18-20-22. Felt great in the first 12 miles, very smooth and in control. The pace was not super fast, mostly due to the wind. Several individuals attacked in the early miles, for nothing, it appears, except to squander precious energy which should have been saved for the upper slopes. Then Ian Nansel, who ended up 3rd, put in an attack to rip everyone's legs off. I went with it and the field was whittled down to about 10. He kept the attacks up to about mile 16 and I thought, surely, he was either going to explode and things would settle down (please, god, please) or I was going to explode. In previous hill climbs, Ian has proven to be short on patience and long on attacks. Invariably, he always would get snapped up and finish respectably in the top 10, but never end up victorious. There was not reason to believe that today would be any different. However, I must say he put in one hell of a solid ride.

After another surge, the front and final top 3 guys - Ian, Greg Ross and Brad Winn - started pulling away. I sat behind 2 guys and figured I would let them try to bridge up since Greg and Brad are on my team. When a 50m gap opened, I geared down and tried to bridge up. Got within about 10m and just couldn't make it, so tried to calm myself down and survive.

Long story short, a chase group of 5 of us eventually came together and played cat-n-mouse for the final 10 miles or so. Lots of attacks, regrouping, slowing down, positioning and more attacks. Just about everyone wanted to drop everyone else, which left the pace frantic and up-and-down. Not the best for maximizing our speed, but what needed to be done by those who wanted to make a solid bid for 4th place. I didn't attack at all, wanting to conserve everything for an anticipated final dash to the line against the other 4 guys. But finally with about 1.75 miles to go, Will from Vitamin Cottage put in a strong attack and the other guys just couldn't respond. I went after him, caught him, looked over my shoulder and noticed a gap, so clicked down 2 gears and attacked myself. (Note to self: An all out attack with 1.5 miles left at 14,000 ft is NOT recommended next time). I opened up a :33 gap by the finish line on Will (who finished in 5th), but I was wrecked. My legs were tingling because of the lack of O2.

So, while I was disappointed that I could not stick with the top 3 guys, I was definitely satisfied that I raced smart and was 'the best of the rest.'

I won't be at next weekend's race in Salida. It's a brutal course - 6.5 laps of a 10-12 mile circuit with each circuit including 1,300 feet of climbing. Feedback's lead on Spine & Sport is a scant 3 points after Mt. Evans. We have a solid crew of guys heading out to Salida; barring supreme bad luck, we should widen our lead and come away with the BAT title.

Time to chew on the season for the next couple weeks, figure out what worked and clearly what did not and then mesh that with 2007's approach. I'll probably blog about it, once I ferret out the details. Till then . . .

Ride safe,
Nate

7/13/08: Longmont Crit

Despite this being the Sr. Men's State Crit Champs, if I boiled it all down my sole goal was to get in a solid hour of hard work and to show marked improvement over my May fitness in doing so. I had recently concluded my own "mini Tour de France" training week where I effectively packed as much climbing, long rides and hard work into 7 days as I possibly could. A week removed from that effort, which left me completely drained, I was curious to see what my legs had in them for would prove to be a super intense crit.

About 100 riders lined up for the race. Given that lapped riders would be pulled from the course, not everyone would finish. There would also be a gnarly crash or two, ending the hopes of more than one rider. The action was fast and furious from the gun, as a State Champ race should be.

A CSU rider took off about a half-lap into the race. Another guy tried to bridge up but couldn't and was stuck in No Man's Land. My legs felt absolutely amazing, so as we made the sweeping right turn before the right turn into the finishing straight at the end of Lap 2, I shot off the front. Blew right past the guy in NML and joined the CSU guy at the top of the finishing straight. The 2 of us stayed away until 49 minutes. According to the spectators shouting out time splits, our lead grew to a max of 46-47 seconds (just over a half-lap).

What's a race without a bit of sour luck? At 25 minutes, I somehow managed to get stung by a bee in the leg. To that point, my breakaway companion and I were pretty well balanced at 50/50 for our efforts in the break and our lead grew steadily lap after lap. For about the next 15 minutes, as my body absorbed and processed the histamines of the sting, I was only able to do about 15-20% of the work, for which I apologized to the guy during one of the times I was pulling through to do some work. I could not breathe nearly as well and, thus, my effort suffered. Legs still felt really good but the O2 was lacking. Then, about 40 minutes in, the airways opened up again.

Unfortunately, by that time our 46-second (or so) lead had dwindled to 17 seconds. Clearly, the peloton had realized this was a break to be taken seriously. So, did the bee sting allow us to be caught? I think it contributed to us getting caught sooner than we otherwise would have. Maybe we would have stayed away until 55 minutes, but the chasers were damn motivated to catch us, so while my ego would like to believe I had a 50% shot at victory, in reality I don't see how it would have ended up in a 2-man sprint at the end.

But that's OK. I got out of the race exactly what I wanted to. Whereas at the SMK crit in May I was desperately fighting just to yo-yo off the back of the peloton, on this day my legs were snappy and clearly stronger. My goal of having a single, focused ramp up to Mt. Evans next Saturday appears to be right on track. Finally!!

But, I digress . . . My teammates in the peloton can probably shed better light on the serious take-up on the chase and their own race experiences. JT had a scary moment, similar to my Rist Canyon implosion but apparently even worse. I walked over to him as he sat against a building in the shade and his eyes were glazed over and he was clearly disoriented. Heat exhaustion for sure – high HR and respiratory rate, chills, numbness, etc. He was whacked. We attended to him by getting him an iced down and wet towel to drape over his head and shoulders, and a bag of ice to sit on his femoral artery to cool him down more quickly. After that, he was handed over to his friend and the local medical help. He'll feel like crap for a couple days, is my guess.

As I reintegrated into the peloton, everyone appeared to be there and was riding well. I found Diran and did my best to stay next to him. The legs felt good enough to dig deep on the final lap and try to get him closer to the front. With three laps to go as we rounded that first corner (the plywood corner), I got guttered, hit a pothole and heard this resounding "Boom! Clank!" as my rear wheel nailed the pothole squarely. I mentally freaked as I expected a broken wheel, a flat or something terrible. Thus, I rode trepidly the next 1.5 laps. The last thing I wanted to do was take a corner aggressively and have my bike slide out. By the time I re-gathered my wits, Diran was far in front of me and I was useless to his cause. While finishing somewhere in the middle of the mix, I followed my teammate Andrew right up that finishing straight as he blew by a surprisingly large number of racers.

Woke up the next morning feeling tired for the effort but with a surprising amount of spring in the legs. For the first time all year, I finally feel like Evans is going to yield a great result. We'lll see come Saturday.

Ride safe,
Nate