Hell Climbing, I mean, Hill Climbing Joy

(courtesy of clubmate Nick Hussey)

I sort of fancy myself a climber, though in reality I'm more of a pint-sized rouleur than a lightweight grimpeur. Still, when the road goes up I tend to do well, so what better way to top off a fine racing season than to try some hill climbing time trials?

Mistake #1: hill climbing is nothing like climbing a hill in a race. Following wheels, attacking off the front, marking others' attacks and setting tempo on the front are all completely different from the all-out lung busting effort that is a typical UK hill climb (more or less five minutes at ~10%). Rarely will you find me at my all-out 5-minute power for longer than a minute or two in a road race unless it's the final few minutes. And most importantly, the pyschological distraction and stress of other riders makes climbing at that intensity in a road race quite a bit more tolerable.

Mistake #2: pacing is pretty crucial. Going out even a bit too hard will be repaid in a thousand agonies. If the race is a short two or three minutes, you might get lucky; at least it's over quick. But for anything longer than five minutes, pacing is really important.

Mistake #3: underestimating how badly it will hurt. I've done three hill climbs now and I feel I've learned a huge amount between the first and the third, but the one thing that hasn't changed is how awful it feels while you're doing it. Proper pacing makes it manageable but that wheezing chesty cough still happens after every one. I have yet to puke at the top so maybe I'm not going hard enough though?

So what is a hill climb about? It's the most intense experience of time-trialling that exists. It's all you and nothing but you out there. The clock is ticking somewhere far away, but in the here and now it's just you... suffering, hearing your own ragged breathing, struggling to turn over the pedals, thinking how badly you're doing, wondering when it will end. If you're lucky you'll see someone ahead of you floundering even worse and use it as mean motivation; if you're unlucky you'll be overtaken by your minute man which only serves to dampen further any enthusiasm you have for hill climbing. The final seconds are a sweet respite as the sight of the finish line promises relief that this will finally be over.

But it's cruelly deceptive, as the first few seconds after the race is over are nearly more painful than the race itself. Gasping for breath, legs jellified, skin tingling, brain insisting that you never do one of these again! All of which disappear in the next minute or two leaving you feeling exhilarated and full of adrenaline. And those feelings last long enough to sign up for the next one.



Me climbing through cowbell corner at the John Bornhoft Memorial Hill Climb (courtesy of clubmate Rich Allen)

2010 Team Series Wrap-up

Two weekends ago was the final race of the Team Series, and with a hilly course suiting my strengths and several of the series' best riders away in Ireland at the Ras na mBan stage race, I was looking forward to a good result. So with a team of four strong riders we were off to Coalville to race on a chilly and windy but thankfully dry September morning.

We rolled out of the HQ, across the road and 400m later past the lap/finish line: 6 laps to go, 14.5km per lap. This was a longish race Team Series standards, but that was fine with me. Leona was behind the lead car as it pulled away, and with all the Motorpoint girls (juniors, nearly every one of them) chatting away about school, boys and whatnot, I casually made my way up the group to sit beside her. And then picked up the pace just a bit. And then decided to ride off the front ever so slightly... peeked behind and the bunch was somewhat noticing but not really.

All of sudden Emily came flying past me and I let her get a gap of 30m or so. Nobody reacted because it was so early (2km into an 87km race!) and I'm sure they thought she would come straight back to us in a minute or two. Then MaxGear's Anna Fischer -- one of the best domestic riders in the UK right now -- flew past on her way over to Emily and I decided this was a wheel I needed to jump on. I did, and we quickly reached Emily who was able to grab my wheel and the next thing I knew we were away with a massive gap. And so it stayed for the next 85kms.

First lap we pulled out a minute, second lap another minute, by the third lap that seemed to be holding (Anna's teammates policing the bunch with Leona's help, and Motorpoint not able to get anything going) and by the fourth lap there was word that two riders were 2 min behind us and the bunch was not chasing. At that point, even though we were slowing down from our original lap-times (not helped by the wind picking up), I knew we'd stay away from everyone as long as we kept working.

But my legs were not good. Emily was having a really great ride, I had been worried at first that she'd get gapped on the sharp hill before the turn into the finish-line draggy straight, but she hung on. And did more than her share on the flats and into the wind. Anna did quite a bit too, in fact I felt like I was the weakest of the three of us at times, struggling a bit with an upset stomach from early that morning and legs threatening to cramp up. Frustrating, but I could live with it.

In retrospect Emily and I should have been attacking Anna on the last lap, taking turns at it, but in the moment we didn't really have our plan organised and frankly I wasn't convinced we could beat Anna anyway. Emily selflessly sat on the front most of the last lap and when Anna attacked going up the hill before the final corner I went with her for about 5 seconds til my legs said "no way" and my brain stupidly said "2nd place is fine" so I came in about 100m behind her with Emily another 100m behind me. Not a bad result really, though of course now I'm annoyed with myself for giving up the win without a fight!


Looking rough at the halfway point (from left: me, Anna, Emily) (courtesy of race organiser Nick Horner-Maddocks)

But the best was yet to come... after the finish we turned around to go back and watch the other riders come in. I was curious who the 2 riders between us and the bunch were and much to my delight it was Leona with a giant grin on her face, having outsprinted her break companion to come 4th! Mathilde ended 11th, rolling in with the next group as the bunch had split again at some point. So that meant top team was us, Surrey League. All in all a pretty successful day and a satisfying finish to the end of my road race season. Great rides by Emily and Leona made for 3 happy girls on the long ride home.


Leona and her break partner Maxine Filby working together (courtesy of race organiser Nick Horner-Maddocks)

Later we learned that with our strong finish at Coalville, we managed to leap over the Rapha Condor team in the overall standings into 3rd. A nice way to end the season and it showed that consistent performances are just as important as stand-out performances when it comes to a season's overall results (see the series report on British Cycling's site).

End of Summer Vacation

Okay, so I haven't written for a while... call it a summer vacation. It's now well past summer as a glance outside at the dark pouring rain would show, so back to blogging.

Lots of news to share, starting with the London Women's Cycle Racing League prize presentations last night. It was a great event, hosted by Look Mum No Hands of course. We, the Kingston Wheelers, did quite well with teammates Sabine and Emily picking up 5th and 7th place respectively, with Emily also getting the Most Combative Rider award. Having held on to my 1st place through July and August, I won the overall and KW as a team finished in 3rd. We all left with more cash than we arrived with, and some nice prizes too. All in all a pretty successful night!


From left: Emily, Lise, Maryka, and Sabine (Hillary absent) (courtesy of Dave Hayward and London Cycle Sport.)

Jerseys and Suffering

The Etape de la Defonce stage race in Wales went pretty well, all things considered; I'll write a proper blogpost about it later with pics and data. I came home with what I'd hoped to get, which was the women's GC leader's jersey and prize. It wasn't easy as strong Welsh rider Ang Mason was also there, but with the help of my teammates I gritted my teeth and got it done.

At a particularly low moment in the first road race, it occurred to me that cycle racing is just an adult verison of those games you play as a kid, the "who can suffer the most" games. Stuff like holding your breath for the longest time, who cries uncle first when someone's punching your arm, who's the first to chicken out of a head-on collision with another kid on a bike. Everything else being more or less equal, it isn't fitness that tests the best riders, it's nerve and determination and ability to suffer. Mental toughness as it were. Sadists, the whole lot of them!

On a different note, I've now worn four different jerseys this racing season.

From left to right:
-- my home club the Kingston Wheelers
-- the Surrey Cycle Racing League, our women's team for Team Series and other team races
-- the London Women's Cycle Racing league leader's jersey (which I currently hold but could lose at any time)
-- the Etape de la Defonce ladies' overall winner's jersey (which I technically never wore to race, but no matter).

Good legs

Funny how it only takes a few days of good riding to feel happy again about being on the bike. My saddle sore has recovered and I'm over whatever mysterious illness I had a week ago at Hog Hill (blinding all-day headache stupidly compounded by riding 50km to get to the race through the dustiest smoggiest part of east London) which left me dropped from the lead group on the bell lap and struggling for a 7th place finish.

Sunday saw me at the Team Series race in Melbourne, Derbyshire, one of the more hilly races on the calendar and thus suiting me well. With three of us from the Surrey League team in the front group of 18 (it was a race of attrition more than attacks) and the other two in the second group, we managed three top-12 finishes and fifth place overall team. Considering my form and preparation wasn't the best, I was pretty happy with the result against a strong field with several big teams represented.

Monday's ride saw me in Richmond Park under the guise of recovery, but my legs despite being a bit fatigued were awesome and I actually stopped to recalibrate my powermeter because I thought it was reading too high! Two clockwise laps in under 45 min and 195 watts... so much for recovery.

Tuesday's Palace race was off due to the wet course, but I was commissairing anyway and we ran the kids' races on the top circuit instead. I had opted to drive the car for some stupid reason and learned my lesson there: nearly 30 min longer than it takes to ride my bike! Never again.

Then yesterday was our club 10 TT, this time a 2-up team event though I had asked permission to run a 4-up with Leona, Emily and Lise as training for this weekend's Etape de la Defonce stage race. I headed out early to the hills to get a few more miles in my legs and to my surprise the supposed southwest headwind felt like a tailwind. And my powermeter must have been off again too, as the watts were reading a bit higher than the effort would have said. Nope, all good... so there I was, gliding up the hills and flying along the flats, trying to hold back a bit for the TTT but my legs would have none of it. Until the puncture of course, but that just gave me more reason to haul it along the A25 to get to the club 10 signing-on in time.

The TTT itself went very well, we took the first half steady (again I noted the lack of headwind and wondered how the return leg would go). When we turned around to come back, there was no wind there either and we caned the last few miles in a very smooth through-and-off for a respectable 24:34 time -- all of us on roadbikes with not a stitch of aero gear.

Siting in the car on the way home, I mused that it had been one of those rare days when there's always a tailwind, the hills seem flatter and riding a bike is just plain fast. It was the anti-Shut Up Legs day. We cyclists often moan about the omnipresent headwinds, the steep hills, the crappy road surfaces, etc. but yesterday was just the opposite for me. Seems my legs are coming back nicely. Dare I hope for a good result at the race this weekend?


(Click the pic to order one of these t-shirts from the Cycling Tips blog)