Tuesday, January 1, 2008

San Bruno Hill Climb

What better way to shake off those New Year's cobwebs than a cold dose of a mass sprint start uphill TT... courtesy of Peninsula Velo and Kondra Systems. Great hosts and organizers. They even dropped off bags for us at the finish. I loaded mine with warm clothes for the ride back down.

It was a beautiful day, relatively warm and sunny at the bottom but pretty gusty and chilly at the top. A lot windier than last year. Driving to SF was a breeze! Zero traffic looked like a scene from Mad Max.

I warmed up on the trainer for about 20 minutes, 3 repeats (a third up the hill), gulped down some calories, visit the Porta P then lined up for the start. Thankfully, the race went off in two waves instead of a single massive sprint start like last year. Short but not so sweet. Though it was over before it really got uncomfortable.

Yea brothers I was there to ride it but did you say RACE?!? Nah, Brah, I was there to add to my growing collection of nice, shiny safety pins. They were out of free water bottles...

The novelty of this event was punctuated by a couple of bike messengers all decked out in full regalia. I didn't see if they were riding fixies. Fortunately we were spared an appearance by Santa, Father Time or Baby New Year.

It went as predicted -- about 20 minutes of lung searing pain. I went for a nice spin afterwards then again when I got home before hunkering down for a couple of bowl games. Too bad Illinois and Hawaii forgot to show up.

Click image and you'll see where I fumbled to get clipped in before finally able to ramp up to something resembling 'steady'.

Map, etc is at site below. Feel free to click and check out anything you want on the dashboard.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/4692254

Clocked in at 19:41, middle of the 35+. Great tune up event, a good reminder of some things I need to work on and stay on top of -- race prep, clothes, nutrition, hydration, and most importantly staying organized to have enough time for a warm up and any last minute gear adjustments. It appears I also need to practice clipping in.

Lots of pics getting uploaded at:

http://www.ncncaracing.com/reports/2008/sbhc.php

Next race? Masters Smackdown on Sunday!!!

A safe, healthy, prosperous and Happy New Year to all!
---
lvm

2 comments:

FWS said...

Way to go Lee!
That's definitely a SSE
throwdown... Idle to max
heartrate and hold!
DBC Masters start out the
year in fine form.

Ciao...

Lee said...

Thanks Fred, but that's not max HR, it's my version of a (hungover) steady state. I'm saving the max for this coming Sunday...