I finally did the Bogus Basin Hill Climb after skipping the past two years due to bad air quality (and lack of fitness, but let’s blame the air!). Last weekend was a bit hard and even though I had a decent workout on Wednesday, I didn’t feel as fresh as I thought I would during yesterday’s pre-race workout. But what can you do!?
Heather’s in a bigger training hole than I am so she skipped today’s race altogether. It proved to be handy as she was able to drive the car up to the top so I could spin on the rollers after the race. She also was my very own personal photographer!
I got a good warm-up on the rollers and power was looking good. When the race started I got the whole shot then once the road widened, I moved to the right so people could pass me. I wanted to keep it chill on Corrals and save it for the second half. I let the whole front group pass me, but I still was putting out 340–350 watts. In hindsight, I should have eased up even more as my first five minutes was 331 watts (after sitting at the start line for five minutes).
After Corrals I was able to pace myself better and let those riders that like to surge up the steeper parts, go. I kept it around 300–320 watts. I made the halfway point at one of my best time ever, at around 32 minutes. Then my legs started to really hurt. I tried to keep pushing but I could tell my wattage was dropping. I tried not to look at my PowerTap so I wouldn’t get depressed. I kept catching some riders here and there, but at a slower rate than earlier. Then I caught a couple who wanted to rotate. I rotated, but I would have rather been by myself. I really like doing hill climbs as time trials with the uneven power surges of taking pulls.
As it leveled off I found myself with only one other rider who I did trade pulls with. I told him we should just rotate as I just wanted to get a good time. We did and as we neared the finish it was my turn to take a pull so I took a monster pull, ramping up my wattage to a point where I thought he wouldn’t be able to come around if he tried. No such superman effort today…he sprinted around me after the last corner and when I stood up to sprint I realized I had nothing after a few pedal strokes. Oh well!
In the grand scheme of things it really didn’t matter as we were sprinting for 26th place! The bigger disappointment was that I didn’t break my previous time of 1:00:06. I did it in 1:00:38. I used my PowerTap today so at least I have a true 1-hour threshold test. My power for the race was 305 watts average and 309 watts normalized. I’m going to round up and update my FTP to 310 watts. Looking at the first half compared to the second half, the split was 312/299 watts average or 318/300 watts normalized.
Results on Spondoro.com:
http://www.spondoro.com/results/HillClimb/2008/results.pdf