World Senior Games 5k Hill Climb

notes I sent my coach.....

I rode the course in 14:47 which would have won the 55-59 last year but was only good enough for 3rd this year. Very happy to at least get a medal. I rode my road bike but a few guys did well on tt bikes. Hard to say. I don't have a super light road bike so that was a disadvantage but not enough to move me up in the medals. Here are some comments:
A very light road bike with super light wheels and some clip on aero bars would be the best set up as the first 1k is just a slight uphill at maybe 4-5%. I hit 27.8 for my max on this section and was averaging 20 for the first few minutes. Given the av mph at 13.07 for the entire thing you can see how slow things became. The upper sections where the slope hit 11-12% require a really light set up.

The altitude (4000' at the top) did seem to have an effect. My HR was at 90% of MaxHR just a couple of minutes in. I was at 95% MaxHR for the last half and I set a new MaxHR at 184, 2 beats above what I though was my MaxHR. So, big effort but....

Power sucked. I was at 382 avg a few minutes in but as HR skyrocket power dropped. Max watts hit 800 and I was pushing the upper 300's (370-380) in sections towards the top but NP was just 330. My gearing seemed to work well as avg Cad was 95. Hard to believe that just last week I was doing 6-7 minute repeats at home at 380-390-400.

I think I did surprise some of the guys from that area. One guy asked if we have any climbs like that in Ohio. Not exactly. In addition to my new Giant Trinity time trial frame that is waiting to be built when I get back I do have a Giant Defy road bike on order. If I outfit that with some super light wheels, I'll be 30-40 seconds faster, I think. Not sure how to combat the altitude issue. I never notice it in Tennessee where I spend a lot of time riding at 5000-6000', but I'm also not killing it.

Tomorrows 40k is at 2500'. I'll be watching HR and watts for pacing.