12km... average 7.5% grade.... first one to the top WINS!!! Lets go Race up and conquer a mountain!

Wow, what a well rested, adrenaline pumping, highly caffeinated ride up the mountain! Woke up and felt great!!! legs were strong and I was having trouble keeping the watts down on 30km ride to the race at the base of cypress.  Got physched out a bit before the race but jut kept telling myself it was TT up the mountain, just focus on my own ride.... and then we were off! Raced on my perceived exertion and ignored the gadgets mostly.

Backed of on the start of the hill and settled in (thanks to the power tap training I no longer push hard at the bottom and die at the top..I'm learning to ride more consistently). felt good. I got to the front of the group with 1km to go to first lookout. 2 girls passed me on the hairpin as I grabbed water and gel. the gel made me want to puke. Karen passed on the way to second lookout and I stayed about 6m behind. then they inched away then they got quite a ways away. Stood once or twice but my heart and lungs were what were dying not my legs so standing was helping so i sat just kept going. This was when puking on the side of the road started to sound like a good idea.  But I caught up to them on the second hairpin as it flattened out. Surprisingly, I didn't need so much of a recovery. One of the girls got dropped and I passed, her and then she tried to catch up, but dropped off permanently. I kept my pace with Karen and the other girl who were in 5 meters in front of me. Karen stood after the third hairpin and they sped up. I kept pace,  but then Karen was cooked and dropped back. I caught up to the other girl with 1.5km to go. Grabbed her wheel and hung on tight! Everytime I put the pedal down I could see I could pass her. Started telling myself to be patient. "You own her... you are going to take her... just be patient... just be patient" With 400m to go I made my move. Stood up and attacked! 10 seconds later I knew I could be in trouble and thought to myself "please let her have nothing left!" I looked back and she was at least 20 m back. But I kept pushing hoping she wasn't saving it. So much pain! I looked back expecting her to be catching up but she was even further back!! But the finish wasn't getting any closer! With 20m to go I was suffering and my HR hit 190 and I gasped at two people on the side of the road "I need a cheer right now." They cheered and I swear its the only thing that got me over the line. 

Now when I started the race I told myself what I really wanted was the total climbing time which means going another 1km to the very top of the mountain after the finish line but by the time I hit the finish my entire body was shaking and it was all I could do to get unclipped. I did it however after what felt like a 5 minute recovery (turns out it was actually only 1 minute:) I sprinted my way to the top :) Even with the stopping, my cypress total time was 49:52--woowhoo for a sub 50min climb! I was wondering if I would pull that off today.

SO! personal bests all around! 48:28 is my race time. First lookout is 14:16 from the hairpin averaging 279 watts (holy shit!) second lookout 14:04.. averaging 247 watts holy cow! and 16:19 averaging 264 watts to the powerlines. GO ME! then 4:51 total up to the top but only 3:32 was riding averaging 254. So that's an average of 262 watts up the mountain. A massive improvement to the 247 of last Sunday.

So cypress from the hairpin was 49:51. That's 2.5 minutes faster than Sunday!!! And an improvement of 17 watts.

Riding on someone's wheel and knowing you can take them is a pretty awesome feeling!

Rode out to Horseshoe bay, along the highway and then up Cypress. Made it all the way to the top without stopping!!! 52:19 (previous PB 5/9/08). Went up at max (like I had a choice, I have no smaller gears). Having an ipod helped a lot! and could that I was recovering faster. I reeled in and passed a woman on the way to first lookout which might have helped with the motivation to go faster. Alternated standing and sitting every once in a while to engage different muscles. It got really hard after the 3rd switchback to the 11km sign, but I made it. HR averaging 176 but I didn't feel like I was dying... probably because of the AC/DC on my ipod.

1st lookout: 14:59 (NEW PERSONAL BEST!!!) 268 watts
2nd lookout: 14:55 241 watts
11km sign: 12:00 233 watts
intersection at top: 9:06 223 watts
top of cross country: 1:19 289 watts

Burrard bridge to home was a struggle and decided to go up 4th/chancellor to avoid the beach crowds. Can't beleive I was able to ride up it so strong (avg 289 watts).

realized trying to focus on a powertap interval was psyching out my desire to climb cypress so just focused on making it to the top and turned the Powertap so I couldn't see what my watts were. Worked great!

So it was pretty much during those 52 minutes of sun shine and climbing I decided to go for my PhD and forgo the world of 9-5 a bit longer.  Well that's not quite the case.. I have to work in order to pay for my first year of the program.. then hopefully grant funding will apply. Things become clear at lactate threshold sometimes.