Race report: Mt Washington Auto Road

Mt Washington Road Auto Road

I signed up this race last winter as ‘A’ bike race, after doing RAAM 2015, I decided to include bike races in my racing calendar to break monotonous Triathlon training, and they are fun. Since I don’t qualify for Crit’s or other road races, in general don’t want to risk myself in tight packed road races, it’s not worth it. So I decided to do Climbing races. Climbing races have different pain but manageable.

Given this is my ‘A’ bike race, training for IM Lake Placid(IMLP) also helps training for this race or vice versa, because both or hilly course.

Training

Training Plan for this race began since March, first thing I want to do for this race was drop my weight from 148lbs to 140lbs, even though I want to go to 137lbs but for Tri and TT 140lbs is best fit, so I worked through losing weight.

I had plans to do lot of Hill clinic and camps with Phil Wong my coach, but work and travel did not allow me to travel so I basically followed local roads with rolling terrain.

Basically all my training for this race was rolling hills, endurance and High Intensity intervals.

Since this race is four weeks after IMLP, I was not ready to peak immediately after IMLP, legs were not ready and not interested in risking injury, I spent 10days after IMLP in recovery zone, less running, more swimming and moderate intensity bike intervals.

All I had was 10 days to peak for this race, coach threw in 4 Purely Threshold workouts with VO2, 3 Endurance workouts with Threshold Intervals, my training plan was calling for all 4.1watts/kg but I managed to do only 3.9 to 4.0/kg as I was still feeling fatigue from IMLP, again now that Kona was in radar my mind mentally prepared not to take risk in injury (because I got injured in 3 weeks after my first Ironman so I have learnt my lesson)

Race Gears

My bike was setup with climbing gears, 34 in front and 11/32 in the back. It was 17.2lbs still heavy compare to other bikes I came across in that race.

Since my coach specialty is climbing, he is a podium finisher he knows every detail about this course, I followed his plan like a robot, I have been working with him for last 2 years, we have pretty good understanding about my strength and weakness, he helped planning my race gears as well.

Race day

Race rituals are good except getting up early, as I had plans to drive on race day which is 2.5hrs drive from home, I had to get up early 4:00Am. I made sure I leave home by 4:15Am, so that I am on time to pick up packet and warm up before the race starts.

My coach said that to warm up on trainer because the roads near venue is not ideal to warm up because they are all super hilly and it is Mountain region, so I borrowed a fluid trainer from friend and warmed up 30Mins.

I am in 2^nd Wave 8:40Am: 35+ Age group, first wave includes “Top Notch” guys who finished previously under 1hr 20Mins, they call them “Top Notch” first wave is luxury no traffic while you climb that is the advantage.

Canon goes off, here we go..

Oh goal time is 1hr 7Mins..

1^st and 2^nd Mile

Plan was to stay in the pack and draft, power zone was 90 – 100% don’t drift above 100%, so I was paying close attention to it, but damn hills and my instinct don’t listen, with in half a mile no drafting, since my power right there where it suppose to, but pack was no moving, so I ended going all alone with my power values. First mile came with in 8Mins, second mile came in 17Mins 40secs, so I was right on target goal time.

Mile 3^rd and 4^th

Mile 3^rd and 4^th was similar to first two miles stick to Threshold pacing but no more than that, so my power still felt good, terrain was getting comfortable, I was close to target finishing time, but I did not judge anything because 3 more miles to go…

Mile 5^th

This part was evil; the actual beast of this course was showing off, this is where I was saying “why did I sign up for this race”, the terrain average gradient was 13%, but certainly there were sections above 15% for almost mile, it was so painful, I ran out of gears here, I really wish I had 34 on back, couldn’t maintain more than 65RPMS, I was out of saddle so many times

Mile 6^th

Another evil section with dirt road, supposed to be doing Threshold and above, I simply didn’t have juice to push the gear, every time I get out of saddle my wheel on the back slips because of dirt road, someone was telling me there were 8 people head of me in my Blue Colored BIB, at that moment all I was when am I finish this pain J

Mile 7th and Finish

Give it all section, mentally felt good, back on pavement felt good, cross winds on mountain were freezing one side of the arm, I did not realize it until I took hand off of bar to find gel, I tried my best to push, until I came across last 100meter a 22% gradient sneaked up on me, my gear was not enough or I don’t have power, my bike almost crashed, I had to uncleat, I got support to cleat back on and move on, I wasted 45 secs and 5 people behind me just passed me L

Take Away

It was great experience, am I going to do this race again, “YES”, but with some changes in Gearing, and much lighter bike, my bike weighed 17.2lbs, most of the bikes that Ryan from Riverside cycles prepared for Hill climb were 14lbs, train once or twice on hills, but not necessary to do lot of hill training.

Strava file:https://www.strava.com/activities/682915736/