7/24/10: Mt. Evans Hill Climb

Mt. Evans is always "the" race for me every summer. I fancy myself a pretty good climber, so this race tends to be right up my alley. To-date, my worst finish has been 4th. This year would prove to be a different story given my upgrade to the P/1/2 ranks, but I felt I was ready for the challenge. My fitness was coming along very well and the indications were that a sub-1:55 was plausible.

Strange weather met us up in Idaho Springs. A low-lying cloud cover trapped the heat and humidity, meaning things would be uncharacteristically soupy for the first half of the race. The clouds left the impression that it would be stormy "up top," above the ranger station. In fact, above the clouds, the sun burst out and left the top half of the course warmer and calmer than I've ever seen it. From one perspective, this was a great year to shoot for a PR.

The P/1/2 race rolled out at 8:15am and was quite the leisurely stroll the first 4 miles. In anticipation of a wild start (like the Dead Dog RR), I was in my big ring and bolted out of the school's parking lot and up the highway. Found myself on the front of the race and nobody riding with any sense of urgency. I let the watts drop well below 200 (high end of recovery effort) and I was still on the front. After letting the watts drop to 150, other riders got the point and finally came around me. But the pace didn't get any faster for the first 20 minutes or so. Then, things changed.

Fairly quickly, the pace ratcheted up and up and up. I soon found myself pushing north of 300 watts, and oscillating between 270 - 350, depending on the nuances of the road surface. The pace was accelerating, but steadily so. Despite the lollygagging the first 4 miles, we still hit the Ranger Station turn-off by Echo Lake in 52-flat - a good 3 minutes or so faster than I've hit the half-way point. Echo Lake was a bit eerie. For about a 90sec span, the temperatures dropped a good 15-20 degrees as we motored through a low-lying cloud bank. Brigadoon comes to mind. Then, we climbed above the clouds just as we took the right hand turn past the lake, at the Ranger Station and on to the road up Mt. Evans proper.

I was feeling strong, but also sweating buckets due to the humidity. I had a feeling the right thing to do would be to back off the pace, settle in and ride strong to the top. But, in races of this importance, sometimes you have to say WTF and just go with it. The pace was hot enough where a large portion of the peloton had already dropped off. In fact, a fair number of riders wouldn't even finish the race due to being out of the running so quickly. My hope was that by hanging on for "just a few more minutes" that a small group would fall off the back of the leaders and then work together to the top.

It was about 15 minutes past the Ranger Station that I blew up. Right when Peter Stetina and another pro dropped the sledgehammer. That left me riding solo for the final 50 minutes or so. Not fun. The extensive sweating had left me overheated and depleted. In hindsight, I should have taken an extra bottle with me (in my jersey pocket) and also dissolved extra electrolyte capsules in each bottle. This would have done wonders for me. As it is, my body was overextended and failing to make the jump to warp speed.

Some riders believe that you need to go really hard the first half of the race because that's where you can make up the most time. Once you get up past a certain altitude, the lack of oxygen makes it impossible to keep pushing. Well, after this year and even last year (even though I won the race last year), I call BS on that. I've ridden more aggressively the past 2 years in the first half of the race, which left me overextended and fighting to keep pressing. My overall time has suffered both years. While I know I'm faster than ever this year, my final time was a good 6 minutes lower than my PR. In fact, the year I hit my PR is when I recorded one of the slowest first halves of the race at a bit more than 56 minutes. IMO, holding back the first half allows one to keep pressing even when the lack of oxygen continues to build and build above treeline. Maybe that's the approach to take next year. But I digress . . .

Despite falling off the pace when I did, nobody passed me. Nor did I catch anybody else. My place was my place, which ended up being 18th. My worst placing in a hill climb this year and an underperformance. I was disappointed for sure, but at the same time happy that I decided to challenge my limits just past the halfway point. I rolled the dice and lost, but at least I rolled them.

The prospect of racing the next day in our team race, the Scott Kornfield Classic, was not very attractive as I sat on a rock atop Mt. Evans, bent over and heaving as I tried to collect my breath. I wondered if I would be recovered enough to even impact the race or help out Tim and Mahting in any meaningful way. I guess I would find out tomorrow....