Race Report: H2H Hill Climb, Cat 3

I rode a nice long warm-up of 35 minutes, and then I raced up a single hill in 3:57.92. That's just about the entire "race report."

I paid 22 dollars to race up a 0.8 mile hill in less than 4 minutes. I showed up for BAR points, and would much rather have been actually riding my bike somewhere fun. Millersburg, perhaps.

The race, though? Well that effort wasn't enough for the win, not nearly. I was at least hoping to beat SuperDave's previous time of 3:50 (per his challenge in the parking lot). Oh well.

Thomas M. from C3 rode up in 3:36; Brigham (R1V) hit the line at 3:57.48 seconds. Brig was the big target as he's ahead of me for the BAR. Now he gets a slightly bigger advantage.

Ouch, though. Thomas whooped us, and Brig got me by less than half a second. I've lost position in a race (rowing) by two-hundreths of a second before, so half a second is a relative lifetime.

But it still sucks to get beat.

So, you'd think I was on the low step on the podium. In an awkward happening, Thomas was given an absurd TWO MINUTE penalty for crossing the yellow line. I don't know who would penalize someone 45% of their total time for an offense, but that's ridiculous. It put him straight to the back of the 5-man competition.

Yes, only 5 Cat 3s raced a MABRA championship event. I guarantee more MABRA people drove up to Millersburg than showed up on Ilchester Road. As I write this, only 9 are signed up for Church Creek. What gives? Can't we create more attractive championship events than these? At least Page Valley was a sell-out.

I digress.

With Thomas' relegation, Brigham took the hill climb jersey and I got the silver medal. The next guy - Todd from Bike Doctor - was a few seconds back. The fifth dude from Evo is probably still climbing the hill. (Just kidding...!)

So what else could I have done?

I averaged 187 beats per minute for the stint, and my max this year has been a low 194. I saw 191 and 192 during the race - a bit too early, probably.

I thought I went fairly conservative on the first pitch, but in hindsight I'd ease off even more so I could get up the deceivingly long second pitch. Either way, cresting hard by shifting into the big ring as soon as possible seems darn important.

Definitely 0.44.

Still, it's not half as heart-breaking as 0.02.

Keck Baker finished in 3:23. That's another level, for sure. I can imagine taking a few more shots at the hill and dropping 5, 10, or maybe even 15 seconds, but surely not 34.