Rist Hill Climb

26 miles, 3500 feet of climbing, and a lot of sucking wind. That's the Rist Hill Climb (which ought to be called a road race instead of a hill climb, but that's neither here nor there). I look forward to the Rist race for a couple reasons: It's one of the few races near my house, and I like climbing.

Thanks to Christine's earlier start time (7:30 AM), I got to Masonville plenty early to see her off, get ready, and actually warm up. I kind of pushed my luck a little with the warmup, but I made it back to the starting line in time to line up.

From the very start, the race felt quicker than last year. I didn't really spend any time at the front of the race, I just sat in and made sure I had space to get around people on the climbs if needed. I had one teammate in the group, and he did a great job of giving me a friendly wheel to draft. (Not only was Zach tired from working hard the previous day, he ended up getting a flat partway up Rist and had to ride to the finish on a rapidly deflating tubular. Anyone who rides a flat up at 12+% climb deserves a medal.)

Riding across the dams was hard as usual, with some accelerations and half-hearted attacks. You're not going to win this race for yourself on the dams, but it's a good place to soften people up.

We reached the base of Rist with a fairly large group (I think, I didn't actually spend time looking back). Things heated up quickly as there were several really good climbers on board. I've ridden with some of these people on group rides, and seen them hang with cat 3's and better. I wish they'd go ahead and get the mandatory upgrade already. :)

I got dropped early on the climb this year. A little before the first set of mailboxes. I was bummed because I made it so much further with the leaders last year. I was cramping up pretty bad, and had to really take it easy for minute while I had a stitch in my side. I don't know what that's all about, but the cramping is annoying. After I recovered, I was able to settle into a good rhythm. I caught a friend a couple miles from the top and we climbed up together for most of the rest of the way while we chatted.

When we got up to the top, I was pretty shocked when I looked at my time. According to my clock, I finished in 1:34:50. To put that in perspective, I rode the same course last year over 4 minutes slower. I finished in 14th this time, whereas last year I was 7th. Go figure. The whole group went ahead and got quicker. Damn. So, while I'm bummed that I didn't place better, I'm happy to see that I'm significantly faster.

My day of speeding around wasn't over yet. Christine and I had a 3PM flight to Austin to catch, so I had no time to hang around at the finish. I hooked up with another local rider for the ride back down to Masonville. It's a rip-roaring fun ride through Buckhorn Canyon. I should mention that the other dude is a 200+ pounder so while he's coasting along, I'm in my 53x11 pedaling hard. I was happy to have the motivation to ride fast because I really needed to get moving so we could make our flight.