Larch Mountain TT

Larch Mountain Hill Climb TT

At the last minute, Steve and I decided to enter the Larch Mountain time trial. OUCH! No, seriously, OUCH. The Larch Mountain time trial is part of the Oregon Uphill Championships. It's the second in a series of 5 events. They are all grueling climbs. The people who pre-register for these things eat 10% grades for breakfast. They relish the pain they endure on the back-breaking ascents. We don't plan on entering any of the other events.

We had originally planned on driving out to the bottom of Larch Mountain, and having a somewhat leisurely ride up to the top. We were certainly not going to put a race-worthy effort into it. But Steve found a link. Curse him! He found the link to the race and sent it to me. He even said "I don't want to do this". But it was too late, I couldn't NOT do it now. The fact that he showed a single spark of interest was enough to fuel my desire to enter this crazy race.

So we planned for about a day. We decided we weren't going to take it very seriously. That we would treat it as a low priority race and that we would do our normal Saturday group ride the day before. We would even run errands on Saturday afternoon which included being on our feet for 3+ hours further sapping our energy.

On Sunday morning we arrived promptly at the end of registration (9am) and signed up. After chatting with the race director for a while, and some other people we knew, we got changed, pumped up our tires, and warmed up for exactly 12 minutes.

We were almost the last people to start. Steve started 30 seconds after me, which was very helpful when I managed to take a wrong turn in the first mile. But I caught my potential mistake and waited for him to come by so I could ask him which way to go! Note: Deduct 30 seconds from my finish time. The race promoter really should have staged a volunteer at this junction as I found out later that MANY people have made the same mistake!

It took a while to find a good rhythm, and for the most part I felt I was going pretty good. Until a 16 year old passed me like I was standing still. Now there's a humbling experience. I did manage to pass a few people towards the top which felt pretty good. I always try to say some encouraging words both when passing and when getting passed. I'm not sure if the people getting passed appreciate the "almost there" and "good job" comments. They are probably really irritated that they are getting passed and suffering like crazy. They are probably thinking, how could I possibly be doing a good job? I'm getting passed! Anyway, I'm going to keep on doing it even if it's annoying. Who knows, maybe being a little mad will make them ride harder.

I saw the 1K to go sign and picked up my pace just slightly. But I couldn't keep the faster pace. I could barely even register that 1K is .6 of a mile, which on a 6-9% grade is closer to 3 minutes of pain, not 1 1/2 minutes of pain I'm used to on a flat course. So I settled back into my high tempo again and when I finally saw the finish line I sprinted and saved myself about 2 seconds. Steve complimented me on my sprint finish and said he couldn't even stand up because his legs were so full of lactic acid. I said, yeah, I probably wasn't going hard enough.

The officials were very organized. Our results were posted within a few minutes of finishing. My time was 1:15:15, but remembering to deduct the 30 seconds I spent figuring out the course, I really rode a 1:14:45. Not too bad for not doing any serious hill training for 8 weeks. Steve rode a 1:11:50 which is very good. I won the Women 1/2 category, but then again I was the only entrant in the that category. There was one woman who beat me by 1 minute. She was a category 3. Hmm...maybe I'll come back again next year to try to redeem myself.

Nah.