Friends

Friends are amazing in connecting us with ourselves and our aspirations. Today three of them began helping put yesterday's Hillclimb in perspective:

From Alex -
"it sounds like you didn't have too good of a "time" yesterday. But, what the hell, it is a learning experience and something to bitch about over beer :) There is always another year, another
race: haec olim meminisse iuvabit"

With my Latin being a bit rusty I looked it up. It's from the "The Aeneid." In Latin it reads, "Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit." And from NYT interview Robert Fagles says, "One of the most beautiful lines in Latin," he said, "and also one of the most famous. I know the translation police will be looking, as well as good readers." He peered through his wire rim glasses, and read, "A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this." He looked at the page for a moment. " It is about loss, about overcoming the worst," he said, "but the word 'perhaps' is important. It may not be a joy to remember. It may be a bloody misery."

From Ann -
"You mentioned the other night that your head and your legs have to come together to have a great race day. Well, it seems there's a third factor at play here...your experience, or as we veteran racers say, your racing age. You know this already, but you will learn the most about racing from the races you lost, and you will come to cherish those moments because that's when you grew as a person. Those are the times you'll keep coming back to and saying to yourself "I've been here before, I know what to do now". So keep your chin up because you know next year it's going to waaaay easier and sometimes you gotta ask yourself, where's the fun in that? We race to learn about ourselves. Enjoy your loss and know you've discovered something new about you."

And the third -
the photo above, this morning a climb up Logie from the north, a 12%+ twist in the road - always grounding.

No lying in the Race of Truth

Shitty! I haven't the words to express how I feel except shitty.

I know this was suppose to be a learning year - and I have.

I know I was suppose to look to 2010 for applying what I learned - and I am.

But what just happened on Mt. Hood in the OBRA Hillclimb Championships a few hours ago is going to stick in my mind and legs and lungs and heart for a year.

This - not giving it my all against the clock - will never happen again!

I'm really angry at myself. I haven't been this angry at myself in...? ... I don't know how long, but years.

Frankly - 28:58 sucks! It's the first lie. It lies about what I am capable of. I love climbing. I take enormous joy in going up things fast. It's not about beating others - its about going up hills fast. It's a relationship I have with roads that tilt skyward. Climbing is different than all other things we do on a bike. Some cyclists hurt on hills and hate them. Some simply avoid them. Some accept they are there and do what they must to get over them and move on. But I love hills. I love steep hills - those double-digit inclines that pop riders, physically and mentally. I love when the lungs and legs hurt and the head creates the illusion and then magically you begin to spin and then float upwards. There is an incredible beauty to climbing.

Today I got sucked into chasing other cyclists rather than the clock. It was my girlfriend Jenn who had to point out that out - "Do you think you were fooled into thinking you were going faster than you were because you were passing people?" Ya, I blew it. Picking off 5,6 or 7 other riders was not the point. This was the "race of truth" and somewhere along West Leg Road I began lying to myself.

Racing against the clock is about the clock - period. I missed starting my stopwatch and was riding without time - just chasing down rabbits - unfortunately rabbits come in two types, bunnies and hares. Today I needed hares, and that's never going to be a guarantee so focus only the only certainty - the CLOCK.

The Hillclimb was also about learning where limits are - or not - I still am not certain where mine are. Earlier in the season my friend Scott Powell said at some point you just have to take yourself into the 'red zone' and blow up - that way you know where it is. Blowing up on a climb is a huge fear factor - especially for someone who likes to climb, takes joy and pride in climbing. The image of one's self paperboying it up to the finish line - or even worse, not being able to pedal at all - keeps you from venturing too close to the unknown. But the reallity is the unknown may be much much further away from anything I know now and as a consequence I have know clue where my limits are. At some point I need to go there - the sooner the better - then all of this will have perspective - and the fun will return.

This "shitty" feeling will last for a while, through the winter in the rain on the road training, in the spring when races renew, every time the road tilts up in May, June and July, and finally a year from now, at the starting line of the Hillclimbing Championship.

And finally, my congrats to two guys, first David Zimbelman - 25:42 - in the 55-59 group is stink'n amazing, you are an inspiration! And to Scott Seaton congratulations as well - nice climb, and more important, you are a really nice guy. I appreciated your new friendship at Elkhorn and today a top the mountain. I also appreciate the fact that you were the first to come congratulate me when you thought I had won ahead of you - class - you showed a lot of class. I hope I can extend the same class to you and others in 2010.

Climbing back - up a Rocky Point

Sometime hills are the best way, the only way to return to where you began. Throughout history hills have been there, pinnacles from which we see the world more clearly, personally, biblically, politically, metaphorically, they teach us how to humble ourselves and we are once again reminded that climbing always gets us out of the valley we're in.

Maybe it's that hills force us to pump some extra blood between heart and head and with it a few extra bubble of oxygen to clear the coconut? I can't be certain, just know that while I don't always feel great going up, once up there things do get better.

After riding myself into a mental valley at Cascade Cycling Classic, I took a few days and then refound my joy, on a hill, a stretch of 7-9% that doesn't care where you came from. I also have refocused my goals on a hill, the Wy East Rd climb; a snaking one-lane passage up through the forests of Mt Hood, between 4 and 6,000 feet, this year's Oregon State Hillclimb (TT) Championship, to get back to where I began - a love for riding up... up... up.

The closest thing I have to practice on, without driving an hour to Mt. Hood, is 15miles from my porch, Rocky Point Road. A lovely little 1,300' climb over 3.15 miles with pitches in the double digits.

The roll out was easy between 32-35kmh west on Hwy 30. Morning traffic going out is pretty light and the shoulders wide enough to not make the delivery trucks much an issue. It's the perfect half hour warm up my legs need.

The climb starts a 1/4 mile after the Dept of Transportation Weigh Station well marked across the highway. Gear down and get ready - Rocky comes at you right out of the gate!

Some climbs invite you in, then slap you around a bit, give you a few flat bits to catch your breath and then let you slip over the top, Rocky Point will have none of that. Coming off Hwy 30 you turn left and immediately a long ramp of 9-11% glares at you, then disappears into the trees 600m in the distance - if you haven't unclipped to reconsider start flicking that rear derailleur and take a few deep breaths. It's right here where you decide are you here to climb or creep? Over the years I have done both.

Regardless your decision the calves are always my first to complain; they have just come off the big-ring on Hwy 30 and don't like the instant high rev spinning. My breathing is next and the lungs consort with the calves in a debate of a 'reasonable speed'. Today is all about the August 16th Championship and I politely ignore them both.

At the end of that launch ramp the road begins a snaking slither through the big leaf maples. Its easy to imagine a serpent creating this road - on its way downhill of course! Any creature, even with a reduced reptilian brain would have chosen a gentler gradient and more switchbacks. Not this one. Rocky bends gently left then gently right, repeating it at 8-9% for the next several hundred meters. I settle in to a climbing rhythm and keep looking up the road - hearing Paul Sherwin say, "it's never a good sign when the non-climbers start looking at their gears." I'm a climber damn it! I fix my focus straight up the road.

The 1 mile marker is just ahead, I know it too well, I play this 'I will not look at the computer' game with myself until I cross the marker - 5:39 - damn it! I'm way off - I need to be down around five. Once again I hear Mr Sherwin doing play-by-play in my head, "he always come good on his rendezvous" , ya, but that's Armstrong, and I'm no Pro. Clearly. I'm just a 53 year whacko who thinks he can climb. Ya know, compared to most of the guys I ride with I can - they would love to see this - sweat streaming in an uninterrupted rivulet from my chin, constantly rising up out of the saddle to keep the momentum going, and when all else fails looking down at my sock (NOT my gears), my Jens Voigt 'Vorrom, vroom, vroom" socks, remind myself I am having fun and ask 'what would Jens do?' - attack - so I hesitate, then tell myself don't hesitate, again out of the saddle and up the revs.

The Wall
Rocky relents a bit through these trees, over a mile and a half into the climb, my computer flickers 8%, then 9, then 8 again; I keep reminding myself to reach with my knees. A thing I read somewhere, if you are struggling to keep the 'spin' on a climb pretend you are reaching for the handlebars with your knees. C'mon knees - reach, reach.

Ahead the road curves left and then right, the gradient actually ducks under 6%, but it's a lie, around that right is The Wall. I know it; the curse of an intimate affair with this curvaceous slope. It's a beautiful little 100 meters of, as my friend Todd calls it, "witch-slapping nasty". If you were racing this is where you would attack. If you had Contador's legs you would dance away; you'd be inclined on its 15% to take flight for the top. If not, this is where you vainly flick the right shifter to the sound of silence. Sorry sunshine, get out of the saddle and push on the pedals. If your spin has spun, then choke on your pride and 'Paperboy' it. Today I keep the knees reaching and lock my stare on the crest of The Wall. Over the top it's almost flat - 7+%.

The metronome in my head pushes up the tempo... 'reach, reach, reach'... 5:39, 5:39, 5:39... time to make up.

The 2 mile marker pokes out of the shrubbery on the right and 11:23 ticks past... 'reach, reach, reach'...

Outta the saddle, drop a gear, push it from here, most of its shy of 7%, then 6, 5, outta the saddle again. No more shade. Push. There's a motivational monologue raging in my head. I don't feel my calves, my lungs, my anything. Past the 3 mile marker - crap, pushing so hard I forgot to look. Sweat runs into my right eye - live with it - push.

A hundred meters...

One last outta the saddle

18:08

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