Mt Baker hill climb

This post is a little bit late, but as I sit i the haze of back to school commitment I will try and reflect on a truly EPIC race!

The weather forecast had been for a torrential down pour so I was not surprised to see the roads turned to rivers on race morning. Despite the nasty weather I was highly motivated to just race smart and enjoy the hurt.

I had a great 45min warm up on my trainer and I was twitching at the start line ready to rock. The pace at the beginning was really fast and my goal was to just stay with the lead group and try and minimize time at the front and/or back of the group. My heart rate was LBP+ 20-30 a lot of the time so I just tried to control my breathing which has improved a lot with the Spiro I've been doing. My first real effort to stay on was the KOM checkpoint, after this effort I was feeling great... When we got to the final climb I settled in quite easily and I was actually able to attack a little bit. I was feeling super confident in the group and confident I could be in the mix at the very top but I started to fade with 6km to go. Fueling being the issue, I started to have trouble just sitting on and after a couple surges, I cracked.

I start a new paragraph knowing how much my race really changed at this point. Going from "I'm a rock star!" to a place where my legs truly felt empty and I was paralyzed. I began to feel dizzy and I just tried to ascend the beast one pedal stroke at a time. Looking back on the race I am still glad I rode with the lead group and I wasn't passed after I got dropped so I know that we put significant time into the second group. The only thing I wonder about is whether or not I would have been able to take on some extra fuel during the short effort. Eventually I climbed through the mist to the finish line in a time of 1:18, only 5min back from the lead group. I am very happy with my race and glad that I cracked, there is always wisdom to be gained with pushing past our boundaries and this is often more valuable than prize money in the long run.

At the end of the day, My father and I where VERY thankful to get a ride down from the summit where it was 4 degrees and raining. xD