Category: 5
Result: 21:59

The Skinny:

Time was 21:59. 12th place of 33 in Cat 5. Pre-race preparation could have been better. Previewing the course helped a lot. Crummy time but a decent placing.

The Phat Stuff:

I previed the course on Christmas Day. It was 42 degrees and I was freezing despite wearing 4 layers. I did hill sprints and Old Calaveras road the day before since I was spontaneously given half the day off. The time was around 23 minutes. I expected improvement on race day since I planned on resting for the next week.

Race day (today) was a pleasant 60 degrees. However, I had 4 hours of sleep on Monday night and 4 hours of sleep the night before. Monday night insomnia was due to race and car repair anxiety (I needed a working car to get my crap to Berkeley for NYE and the race). I had to get my car fixed at 8AM, pickup my girlfriend from the airport, run some errands in Berkeley and make it to SF by 9PM.

On Tuesday night, I was in a tux at SF City Hall for a Black and White Ball. The party was boring and the alcohol was terrible. I did solve my race anxiety by calmly realizing that Mt San Bruno isn't very steep at all and that I'd do much better since I had knowledge of the course.

I think I went to bed at 3AM, woke up at 7 and started dumping food down the hole. I used half a Rock Star and can of 180 to fight off the drowsiness. My heart was beating normally, but my legs were kind of weak. 180 is a drink similar to Red Bull but contains Taurine and caffeine. They were handing out cans of it at the reg booth.

In the confusion of packing my bike, tux, bike clothes, and what not, I managed to forget my rollers. The hill was not a great warmup since you'd freeze on your way down. Better than nothing.

Being wary of dehydration, I drank about 1 liter of fluid throughout the morning. The urine was a healthy clear, but I think I over did it. How do you monitor pre-race hydration? The worst starting position is in the porto-potty.

Ok, on to the race. Being a nice guy, I started in the back and went up the first 150 meters slowly since I'd burned myself on that section. Being a cheating, roller riding bastard that I am, I rode the paint line and passed up a bunch of folks. I made use of the granny gear to climb seated the entire time. Go Go Granny Gadget!

As I entered the park and the course flattened, I gunned it to the base of the 10% grade. I switched to the granny gear and passed more people. It's kind of funny to watch people stand in 39-25 to gain 10 meters on you only to see you edge past because you're 0.4 mph faster on average.

At about 0.5 miles away from the end, I flipped my computer to the elapsed time and saw it at 16:59. "Ass-tastic!" I thought to myself and I fantasized about having a sub-20 minute time. Of course, my clock at the end read 20:59 and if I had done the math correctly on the spot, I would have realized I needed to speed up to 15 mph to keep it under 20:00.

I really pushed the pace up the last few hundred meters. As I felt a dry heave coming on (this is common for sleep deprivation), I backed off but then sprinted at the last 50m for the hell of it.

I rode back down thinking I had 21:00 which was much better than preview day. The final results read 21:59. This is of course because I didn't remember to reset my computer right when we started. The ass time was kind of a let down. When they finally posted the results by category, I got 12th place of 31 cat 5 finishers. Smack-tackular!

For my next hill climb, I'd like to make top 5. So until then, hills, hills, and more hills!

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