OK - so it was maybe a bit crazy to double up like this (Mt. Evans on Sat, Boulder Peak on Sun) but I had a blast. I also thoroughly enjoyed camping in the mountains the week after the races, riding 4 more passes, swimming at >9000 ft and trail running. I am now exhausted (but in a good way :).
Mt. Evans Hillclmb:
I stayed in Boulder on Friday night and it was about a 1 hour drive to
the Mt. Evans race start so I got up at 5am to get there in time. I
was in the Citizens category which went first at 7:30am. There were
over 300 in the Citizens race and I started near the back. The leaders
were probably already a quarter mile up the road by the time I hit the
start line. The weather was perfect and I wore a short sleeve jersey
but I had also put a long sleeve jersey and tights in the drop bag that
was trucked to the top.
The grade starts out easy and I rode pretty easy at first to get warmed
up. The grade gets steeper after a few miles and I started to move up
through the field at this point. It was pretty steady climbing until
Echo Lake at about half way when it leveled out for a bit before we
turned off onto the Mt. Evans road which was steeper. I had hit the
half way point in about 1:15 so I knew that I would not make my goal of
2:30 since the 2nd half has more climbing than the first. My legs were
already starting to ache a bit, too.
I continued to move up through the field in the 2nd half, but not as
much. At one point I took a drink of water, but I took too many gulps
without breathing and I got really dizzy for a few seconds. After that
I would only take a couple of gulps before stopping to catch my breath
again. Around 11000 feet we rose above the tree line. The wind picked
up but it sometimes was at our backs depending on what side of the
ridge we were on. Around 12000 feet, the road actually drops back down
a bit which gave the legs a bit of a rest, which is good because I
think the steepest part comes right after that. I made it past that
and continued to grind up. But I had some difficulty with dizziness at
this elevation, especially on the steeper parts and on the switchbacks.
So I had to back off a bit for the last few miles.
I finished in 2:58. It did not seem like almost 3 hours. It felt more
like an hour.
http://www.printroom.com/ViewgalleryPhoto.asp?userid=3catsphoto&gallery_id=221586&image_id=586
Boulder Peak Triathlon:
The swim was in Boulder Reservoir. I think the temp was about 75F so I
wore my wetsuit which got to be a bit on the warm side by the end. My
swim felt a bit sloppy and not really fast. My split was 25:54 which
is about 2 minutes slower than normal for me, but that split includes a
really long run from the reservoir to the T-area. I wish they would
have put the timing mat on the shore of the reservoir instead of at the
entrance to T1. My swim rank was 154/1402 which is pretty typical for
me.
The bike is pretty much uphill for the first 8 miles. It’s gradual at
first but then it gets steeper after about 5 miles when it hits Old
Stage Road which goes up at 15% for about 2/3 mile. Just as I got onto
Old Stage, I could hear an ambulance coming up from behind. It was
pretty packed on Old Stage but I moved as far right as I could. I used
a 34/30 low gear on Old Stage which allowed me to sit and spin and I
passed people like crazy. Once past the crowds of Old Stage (both
riders and spectators), I looked off to the right and saw a deer on the
side of the road. He wasn’t spooked at all and calmly walked off as I
passed.
After climbing a couple more bumps, the road goes downhill for the next
8 miles and I discovered the reason for the ambulance. A cyclist had
crashed on a curve on a high speed part of the descent. We all slowed
to get through that. I was surprised how much descending there was
since it didn’t seem like we had climbed that much. I also was
surprised to hit 50 mph since it didn’t really seem that steep. The
last 10 miles were rolling hills to flat and seemed to have a tailwind.
My split was 1:17:44 for 20.0 mph and 335th which is not bad
considering I didn’t have aerobars.
The run was out-and-back on a one lane gravel road along the reservoir.
I ran well for the first three miles but I started to slow after that.
I could feel the fatigue from the Mt. Evans race and I was a bit
dehydrated. I was hoping to run 44 minutes but my split was 46:41
which ranked 246th.
My final time was 2:33:26 which was 35/139 age-group and 219/1408
overall.
http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=7984&PWD=&BIB=970