Hitting the Hills... Or Is It the Other Way Around?

This weekend I did a couple massive hillclimbs on my bike.. Saturday was a bike race up Mt Ascutney in Vermont and Sunday was a practice ride up Mt Washington in preparation for the big race on August 15th. The Mt Ascutney autoroad has 2300 feet of ascent over 3.7 miles. An average grade of 12% with extended sections of 18-19%. The Mt Washington autoroad is 7.6 miles with 4700 feet of ascent, an average grade of 12%, extended sections of 18-19% and the last 50 yds at 22%. These are brutal, relentless climbs that test you to your absolute maximum limits. The only way to understand how hard it is to climb something like this is to try it. And then once you're done trying it, do it again and try to do it as fast as you possibly can. This requires a level of mental and physical strength that most don't possess. Which is why there really aren't a whole lot of people doing it. To train for this I train on the biggest, toughest hills in the area around Wilton, Mason, New Ipswich, the Pack Monadnock Autoroad, and sometimes up into the White Mountains but those hills are easy compared to the ones I did this weekend. None of those climbs take more than about 10 minutes to complete and none of them, with the exception of Pack Monadnock, approach the steepness of the mountain autoroads.

This past week was a tough training week for me. From Monday to Wednesday I did two really hard workouts in the gym with kettlebells, sandbags and bodyweight exercises and I put in about 100 miles on the bike with some really tough threshold and VO max intervals. I went pretty easy on Thursday and Friday and showed up at Mt Ascutney feeling pretty good Saturday morning. I had never done the Mt Ascutney autoroad, which would come back to bite me later. I use a power meter for my training so I have a good idea of how hard I can push for extended periods of time. Racing with the power meter helps at the beginning of a race like this because you can pace yourself a little at the start to prevent blowing up too early. For example,

when the gun sounded, a bunch of guys in my field went off really hard. Too hard. They stayed out in front of me for about a mile, but then they would blow up one by one and I started picking them off. Going by them as they would be all over their bike huffing and puffing. Blown up. Only the strongest would stay out in front and be able to maintain that kind of pace. To be fair, it wasn't like I was taking it easy. Within 5 minutes my heart rate had climbed to about 95% max. But I was able to hold it there the whole way. My heart felt like a blender running on the ice crush setting for the 33:46 it took me to complete the race as I came across 36th out of about 200 racers. My field was clearly the strongest in the race placing more than 20 riders in the top 50. I was 13th in my field of about 55. The one part of the race that I made a mistake was near the top. The road flattened out for an extended section and I was thinking that I was very close to the finish and that maybe there was one last little kicker to climb at the finish. So I hammered on the flat section and gave it everything I had left, only to turn a corner and see a 1/4 mile wall that I had to make my way up. Devastating. I was way over redline and it was all I could do to make the last 1/4 mile, but I made it.. In a ton of pain...

Now that I'm done with the race, this is the part where you see why people that do hillclimbs are such a mental bunch. When I get across the line at these races it is so painful to stay on the bike that I usually just point the front wheel towards an empty patch of land, fall off and lay there for a couple minutes. I'm not the only one, by the way. One person who came across after me practically landed on me as he obviously had his eye on the same empty patch of land I had my eye on... Once I catch my breath, I'll get back on the bike and spin for a bit and look for somebody I know. So I found a friend of mine and pull over to him. I ask him how he did. He says "that sucked. but i think i PR'd" (means got a personal record).. Somebody else pulls up to us and, unprovoked, says "that sucked".. somebody else pulls up to us and says "holy shit, did that suck". I'm not kidding. Nobody says "wow, what a great race". Nobody climbs hills because it's fun. We do it because it sucks so bad that getting to the top is a huge accomplishment. When you tackle something like Mt Ascutney or Mt Washington you are among an infinitesimal percentage of people in the world who would even consider doing something like that, never mind actually achieving it. It pushes you to your absolute limit. Every time you do it, you prove something to yourself. And it's miserable. But the feeling after you're done is something that is very difficult to describe and it makes it all worthwhile.. Well, maybe not immediately :)

I was pretty happy with my result and I hit a new personal best for 30 minute power output. So I'm definitely getting stronger as time goes on. And then it was off to Mt Washington..

I get up Sunday morning at 4:45 so I can get some food in me a couple hours before I plan to go off at about 6:45. My best move of the weekend was to bring my little espresso maker on the trip with me. I fire up the espresso maker and start the process of my own version of doping. Quad-shots of Espresso, bagels, peanut butter, and bananas. Sufficiently, doped, I head off to the Mt Washington autoroad to get warmed up. My legs were feeling a little tight from the previous day's effort, but of more concern was my lungs. I was still suffering from some exercise induced asthma from my "ice crush" effort the day before and I was worried that I wouldn't have the lung capacity to push as hard as I would need to today. This was going to suck. Which, of course, is exactly why I was doing it :) I was warming up on my rollers in the parking lot waiting for my buddy Bill to show up. Bill is one of the top hillclimbers around and has climbed Mt Washington 5 times finishing top 10 in the race on a couple occasions. While I was waiting, a woman and her husband showed up and parked next to me while i was warming up. The woman was getting ready to climb. Here's a little excerpt from our discussion:

Me: "Ever ride it before?"

Her: "No, how is it?"

Me: "It sucks beyond belief."

Her: "Hahaha."

Me: "No really, I'm not going to lie to you, it's miserable."

Her husband: "Hahaha glad I'm not doing it, have fun honey..."

She quickly warmed up and headed out a while before Bill and I went off.. I ended up passing her later on at about the halfway point and she was suffering big time.. I gave her a "Cmon, you're doing great!" as i went by and she responded with "Unnhh".. It was nice to see the development of a true hillclimber.. Now when she gets to the top she'll be just like the rest of us as we commiserate with each other mumbling our mantra, "man, that sucked."

Back to the story.... Bill showed up, we finished our warmup and headed up the mountain. I heard a "ping" come from my rear wheel which I thought sounded like a broken spoke but when I looked around I didn't see a spoke flopping around so I kept going. Come to find out later, one of the spoke nipples had sheared causing the wheel to come out of true to the point that the wheel was just slightly rubbing the brake in one spot. But I'm working so hard to get up the mountain anyways that I never noticed it. Oh well, the suck factor goes up by a little for the day. Whatever.

When I climb the mountain I know I'm in for unspeakable pain but I try to keep my sense of humor as long as possible. I crack lame jokes to people as I pass by them "Are we there yet?", "Mind if i get in behind you and draft for a little bit?" (remember we're moving about 6 MPH).. My sense of humor usually lasts about 30 minutes and goes away right about the time you get above tree line and start getting pummeled with wind. Today's ride was no different. Within the first mile my heart rate settles out to about 168 bpm which is about 92% max. A little less than the "ice crush" rate I maintained on Mt Ascutney yesterday, but still pretty damn high, and my lungs were already searing. Legs warmed up nice and my power numbers were right where I wanted them. Get through mile 1 pretty easy even though it's a nasty 12-14% grade. During the next 2 miles there are extended sections of up to 18% grade which most people have never seen on a paved road before. Between mile 3 and 4 every part of your body is in pain and there is absolutely no position, sitting or standing, that provides any relief. And I'm not even half way there. This is where the mind games start for real. "Dude, you're not even half way. You're never going to be able to keep it up.". But I do. Once above the treeline at about mile 4 I'm a little over half way there and I'm getting long looks of what's to come and it's really, really ugly. I can see half a mile up the road at a time some times and it's just so steep and I'm in so much pain that my mind is screaming at me to quit. But I don't. I keep turning the pedals as if my life depended on it. Not only that, but since I'm trying to accomplish a PR, I'm turning them as hard as I can. My heart is beating out of my chest at about mile 5 as I turn into a half mile stretch of gravel that's at 18% grade with a 50MPH headwind that freezes my fingers and practically knocks me off the bike a couple times. Now we're having fun, right? Um no. Did I mention how bad these rides suck? The last couple miles are a blur. My lungs are gurgling, there's shit coming out of my nose and mouth that's freezing to my cheeks and eyelashes with the wind chill at about 30deg. My lower back is killing me. My legs are killing me. My arms are killing me from pulling on the bars. I stand up, it hurts. I sit down, it hurts. I pass people that have gotten off their bikes and started walking. I would rather die than be one of those people. I didn't come to walk my fk'n bike to the top of this mountain. I get to the top of long steep sections that end into a turn, hoping to get around the bend and see something flatter. But it's not. It's as steep if not steeper than what I just came off. Then at mile 7 I enter the cloud. It's cold and wet and the scene is surreal. Moonlike, with nothing but rocks and fog all around. (I know this from when I was on the Moon and that's exactly what it looked like).. I come to a flat spot and I know I'm getting close to the finish. I hammer the flat spot and come into the last uphill section of the climb. I hear the people cheering at the top as I come around the last little kick in the teeth which is about 50yds at a mind-numbing 22% grade. I cross the line and look at my clock, just under 1:18. A new personal best. This is at the end of one of the toughest training weeks I've put in. The day after a monster effort up Mt Ascutney. A 50 MPH headwind at the top. And a rear wheel that had a slight rub all the way. My goal is to hit 1:10 on August 15th. Cutting 8 minutes in 4 weeks may be unrealistic even under ideal conditions, but if there's one thing that's for certain it will be that I will give it my best. I left everything I had on Mt Ascutney yesterday. I ate, slept, got up the next morning and left everything I had left on Mt Washington. I set personal bests on both days. The efforts sucked beyond belief and my body is hurting a lot. But I accomplished things this weekend that most people will never accomplish in their lives and, for that, it's all worthwhile.

And now.... I'm going to eat a giant bowl of Jake's Ice Cream...

Best,

kevin