Dead Dog stage race

I wasn’t excepting much today, but I was excepting more. We rolled out real chill for a few miles. But soon it was all on. One of the teams that had lots of numbers went to the front and caused some pain. That provoked a small break but with some more attacking they were back in the fold. After 27 miles or so we hit “the climb” 20 miles give or take the first rise was a mile or 2. Not so bad. I kicked up to 8% after a bit and there was an acceleration. A drifted back and then slid back then moved up again after the attack not wanting to accelerate to much. I knew this would be a tough go for me. After the first dig I was working hard but I felt confident. Another one came and I was now going backwards. I pushed on the pedals a bit more, nothing. HR was at 200. and my legs felt worse. We came to the top of the first rise where there was supposed to be a short down hill. Well down hill in WY means flat apparently. Bamb gone. I was off the back. And the real climb didn’t even start yet. I road steady and actually held the lead group for longer than I thought one should. But after a bit longer they pulled away. Far far away.
So what ever I wanted to race, good training this will be. I set some rules for my self. 80 rpm’s or higher. And at or under threshold. I had a long ride ahead of me. The climb had some steep sections but nothing crazy, 8%, maybe a bit more in places but 20 miles yo! I plugged along passing some then I got passed. At he top 10,500 feet just so you remember, we went down To the turn around, back up to the summit and down the long long decent.
The views at the summit, yes I was taking them in, were great. Only in my climbing days have I seem mountain views like this, along with snow on the side of the road in late June.
ok so down the climb. I descended as fast as I could no major turns but the head wind on the decent made it impossible to catch any sized group. back on the plans now I settled in for a 27 mile TT bake to the finish. A 27 mile into a strong and worst off very steady head wind. I kept eating realizing that despite my horrible performance I was still using lots of energy. With 10 miles to go a group of 4 came up, I hoped on and we rode a pretty solid pace to the finish.

”Very, hard training today… very, very hard training”
Victor Hugo Pena

Stay tuned for more tails form the hematocriticly deficient.