Mt
Diablo HC TT Walnut Creek, CA (35+Cat 4/5)
Field
Size: 27
Placing:
10th Overall (8th in Cat 4)
Teammates:
Alexander Komlik, Andy Crews
Average
Speed: 11.9 MPH, Top Speed 31.0 MPH
Average
HR: 182 Max HR: 188
Elevation
Ascent: 1,699 Ft.
Weather:
89.7 degrees avg. Sunny and hot!
This is my 2nd time
racing Mt Diablo Hill Climb TT. It’s a great
way to check your mid season fitness on a hill climb. My goal was to get a sub 30. 34:42 was my best time so far. That is a big chunk of time to take off but
that time was from 2011 when I got a 1:06 time at Mt Diablo Challenge. In 2012 I did the Mt Diablo Challenge in
57:17. I stripped everything I could off
the bike including water bottles and cages.
I raced my Zipp 404 tubulars, and a skin suit. I packed a few Clif Shot Chews under my right
leg of the skin suit if I needed anything.
Stuck with my whole grain oats breakfast 3 hours before the race, a
bagel 2 hours before, and a performance power bar during my warm up. This combo seems to be working well for me.
I started off warming up on the
trainer for about 45 minutes in the shade.
Felt great on the trainer. I had
gotten off duty that morning from work, and headed straight to the race. I knew it was going to be warm because it was
already 75 degrees while warming up. In
2011 that was the race temp, but this year the race temp would be 90
degrees. There is no shade on the
mountain either! I started about mid way
down the start times for our group. It’s
a little over a mile to ride from the registration to start line. They have a ramp for us to clip in and start
the race, and there is a 30 second gap between each rider. Started off fast and feeling good. The first couple rollers you can build some
good momentum for the climb. It’s a 6.2
mile climb so you can really push yourself the entire way. There is no reason to slow down for recovery
time. You can recover after. I caught my 30 second guy about 3 miles
in. I got passed up by 2 riders, and
caught another 2 on the way up. Not much
to report until I got to the 1K. Two
years ago I wasn’t paying attention to the mileage and they only had the 200
meter sign out. I wanted to try and ramp
up my effort from the 1K mark. It’s a
lot harder to actually do that because that last 1K is tough and not flat! I managed to shave off about 30 seconds. That’s a good improvement for this
course. 2013
vs 2011 Garmin Data Finished the
ride to the junction so that I could get some water.
Overall I am pleased with my
finishing time of 31:31, and a 10th place finish overall in the
combined group. I scored some team
points for SJBC also. 8th
place for the Cat 4’s. That’s a PR of
3:11. I bet if the temperature was a little lower I could have shaved some more
time off.
My next
race is Cascade Classic Stage Race Bend, OR.
July 19-21!
Thanks
to SJBC!
Thanks
to my Teammates!
Thanks
for reading!
