We woke up early the morning of the race making sure that I had a good breakfast and arrived in time to get a good warmup on the trainer before the Elite 2 race started at 8:10.
I was so excited to race that we actually arrived before registration was even set up and had to wait 30 minutes before we could get the race numbers. I hopped on the trainer around 7:15 and started my normal warmup routine of spinning with a few 1 minute hard efforts to get the heart rate up. For some reason I found it really easy to push my HR up above the 140, 150, 160 and 175 steps that I normally set. Things spun up really easily but this wasn't normal. I didn't know if this was a good sign or not.
At about 7:45 I jumped off the trainer and started getting things ready for the start, pulling on a clean and number pinned jersey and getting the bottles and stuff ready.
As I went to get my bike off the trainer the handle that loosens the clamping mechanism broke off in my hand leaving my bike trapped on the trainer in what had now become a heavy metal boot. Ok, don't panic, I still had about 15 minutes to figure out how to get the bike out and roll to the start. I found some tools in the truck and started to dismantle the trainer and within a few minutes I'd freed the bike. With all this going on I'd forgotten to pack my race food into my pockets and had another mad dash back from the start line to get the race food out of the truck.
Now I was finally ready to go. I was looking around and noticed that a lot of guys only had one bottle. With the neutral feed at 30 miles you really only needed one bottle to get over the mountain this early in the AM.
The race rolled off the start line and super supporter Hailey jumped into the truck to meet me at the official feed zone on the east side of the mountain near the intersection of 130 and Mines Road.
The race started fast with 3 Metromint guys on the front setting a hard tempo up the first climb. It was obvious that these guys were only racing for the top of the Mountain, not the finish in Livermore.
My heart rate was high and I was breathing heavy right from the start. I hung with the group and maintained my place about 10 guys backfor the whole of the first climb and down into the first valley. About a mile into the second climb things started to go bad, my heart rate was high but my legs were empty, in fact my whole body was feeling empty and and as the group started to slip away I realized that this wasn't going to be a good day.
I pushed on and maintained a high HR all the way to the top of Mt Hamilton. I was pushing hard but there was no power in the legs. Looking at the Strava data I managed to hold an average HR of 179 for the first 1:10 of the race. Just before the top I was caught by the lead riders of the 35+ 1/2/3 who had started 10 minutes behind us. I stayed with them on the descent and even passed a few trying to chase backto the 2's but as soon as the road went up hill my legs gave out and I was dropped. This would happen time and again as groups came by me and I couldn't hang on.
I pushed on regardless just trying to get to the finish. I picked up a feed from Hailey but it made no difference to the speed I was going, there was no energy to push the pedals. By the time I got to the finish the 2's field had been done for about 30 minutes and I was rolling in with the 3's. One thing that was interesting was that I crossed the line with the Metromint guy who had been drilling it on the first 2 climbs. Apparently he had blown up on the first part of the main climb but he had done the damage by that point. He was trying to launch his teammates to the KOM. I have no idea if he was successful or not but as I thought they weren't racing for the finish.
The good news was that Spencer had placed 2nd in a sprint of about 15 guys. I'd picked him to win but 2nd at Mt Hamilton was a great result.
Again it's time to recover and look at ways of generating more power on the bike. I'm obviously fit enough, being able to hold a HR of 180 for over an hour but it's raw power that I need to develop and I also need to come into these races rested and less stressed if possible. This is going to take some work and careful planning.
I don't have the results yet but the Strava times show that even though I had dead legs and couldn't pedal up hill, I still beat my previous years time by 30 seconds, and the previous year I'd felt great and turned myself inside out to get to the finish line. This year there was no pain and no soreness as I'd had no energy to even push that hard. All I can think is that I'm actually stronger than last year but need to be better rested to be more successful.
Let's see how that goes.
Race Day Food:
Breakfast - 4 bags of instant oatmeal. 1 banana, 1 bottle of Cytomax.
Race - 1 gel, 1 banana, 2 bottles of Cytomax
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Location:San Jose, CA
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