the awards ceremony under the auspices of winterpark ski resort
well. did the inaugural winterpark hillclimb today with my colleague and friend billy, kev (which makes up the homey trinity if you count yours truly), billy's son hogan, kenny the mad single-speeder, and billy's friend jon.
here they are, guess who's who (kenny not pictured)
it was jon (red/black long sleeve jersey) and kevin's (crew cut, blue jersey) first time to do a mountain bike race and they rocked it! doing it under an hour is great for a first timer. me, on the other hand, SUCKED! i was three minutes slower this year than last and i came into this thing much more fit than last year. hmmmm. what can i take away from this? one: i should'na cycled the day before with a lot of intensity-climbing intensity nonetheless. two: what billy said ride the course. i think i was over-confident with my mental topography of the course. when the countdown to go went, my legs were so pre-loaded from friday's jaunt that i immediately went into my lactate threshold. had a great start but faded rather quickly. lungs felt great but the legs were hot and heavy. midway through though i passed a butt-load of people but it wasn't enough for a top ten. cadence was synced perfectly with the rhythm of my breathing 'round midway point. don't know what i would've done better except that the lactic acid came early and stayed. i tried to actively rest on the flats but that just made me want to drop it two gears and chase more rabbits. here's the profile of the course. it rose 2,142 feet in 5.3 (agonizing) miles. start elevation: 9075 feet (2766 meters); end elevation: 11,217 (3419m). yikes!
here's the beginning of the climb. the snow's kind of surreal, no (kenny's gallery)?
for the sake of comparison here's billy's time last year: he was 6th out of 14 with a respectable time of 55'39. this year it's 58'08; 8th out of 19. if you do ratio and proportions, it's no change because of the quality of people entering and billy's fitness being on par with his group (even though both of us definitely felt we were more fit this year than last).
the hoge's time last year 1hour 29'. last place (he was eleven last year). this year he wins! top banana! top one percentile. shaves 25' off his time!
check out proud pappa and the hoge with medal around neck
here's yours truly (aka lame-o). last year 6th out of 29. 45'03. i'm saying to myself, it's reasonable to shave-off time this year. nope! here's today's results: 26th out of 63 (more people this year), 3'13 slower than last (coincidentally it's about the same gap as billy's). proportionally i would've gotten 13th with the same fitness. i dropped fitness and the 34 people that entered this year had skill. if i rode my same time last year, i woulda got 15th. mmmmm, sounds like somebody's rationalizing...in fact, my groups' winning time would've gotten them a top 12 finish in the experts. ladies and gentlemen, that's what the cycling world calls a sandbagger. ite now. in addition to hogan winning, here's two more bright spots today. kevin's time: 59'35, which was a smidge (8.2s) quicker than jon's time. this earned them a 16th and 17th place(s) respectively.
kenny the mad single speeder's time was 48'24!
this is a rare moment-him standing still...(kenny's gallery)
what he's saying to the guy on his right is don't let this smile on my face fool you, once i start pedaling i will rip-off your legs to beat your mellon into an unrecognizable slab of sinewy goo, girly-man.
he was only seconds slower than me and he did it on a hardtail! the boy might be possessed. i'm going to throw some holy water on him and check to see if it sizzles at the places where it touched his skin. he finished 14th out of 18. incidentally, kenny senior was in town visiting from california and it was nice to see his pops again. if y'all don't know singlespeed mentality, they're a different breed folks and kenny's on a singlespeed mission this season. if we compare this to our latest cycling bud alec: he busted 1h1' last year. alec's a talented cyclist but is currently taking a brief sabbatical from cycling to pursue a career in full-contact origami and singing the national anthem at illegal dog fights (naw, he's in california). even though i am disappointed in myself, i still had a sunburnt smile on my noggin' at the end of the day (billy too more than likely...) for dinner, we're having haystack goat cheese from longmont...
on a crispity-crunchity ciabatta loaf...
rinsed down with a shirah/petite shiraz/cab blend (red truck-excellent table wine).
the weather today's as magical as yesterday's. we're going to sit on our deck and view some more of this.
truly kids, this is what quality living's all about (my version at least). family, food, friends, and shitting on your neighbor during a bike race all in a scenic, mountain setting? dat's right kids. pictured below are the artifacts of good living: food, wine (for two-my lovely wife and me), kids (the cup o'milk), a good book (east of eden, by steinbeck-billy's recommendation), cycling (the camelback), and a picnic table (outdoors).
i can't complain about my lameness too much i guess. at least i have this oh so groovy watch tan to show-off while i'm holding some vino..
2 comments:
C'mon, show us the rest of that bike tan, too.
That's the funny thing with climbing. Sometime you feel really slow and you are and other times you feel really great but you are still slow ... oh well! :-) That's why we love it so much I s'pose.
Nice chiabatta and wine ... and nice backyard.
it was weird sandra, i felt great at the line, had excellent positioning-then they got heavy and the lactate sting came eeearly. this was all within the first mile! i'd like to blame the new rear tire (a 2.2) i put on before the climb but sadly it was me and my lack of preparation. like you said i s'pose that's why we [i] love it....
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