We woke up at 5:50 AM and left the house around 7:15 for the drive to Stinson Beach. The Golden Gate Bridge was beautiful in the fog and then almost like magic, Sausalito was sitting in brilliant sunshine. There wasn't much traffic on the windy mountainous road to Stinson Beach. There was plenty of parking and we rode bikes over to the registration area. We ran into Pete from Bikeforums who was his usual ebullient self. He was racing with RFA in the 55+ category. We also saw Ron L. who was already warming up on the trainer. Phyllis was walking over with pancakes from the cafe - she wasn't up for racing up Mt. Tam and elected to ride her mountain bike on her own. While it would have been nice to have P. race to spur me on, she would have been riding with the Cat 1/2/3s, while I was racing with the Cat 4s. The 4 mile flat lead out in the peloton would have rendered our times disparate by at least one minute (the W Cat 1/2/3 peloton being that much faster on the flat lead out). I did have 2 WebCor teammates in the W Cat 4 -Alison C. (a non-racr but good hill climber) and Jamii N. who had a great time in the 2007 Mt. Tam Hill Climb. RFA and I warmed up on the trainer and headed out to the start line. RFA's group started 5 minutes ahead of the W Cat 4s. There was a chance that I might pass RFA, but it was far from a sure thing. The temperatures were perfect and the sun was shining. There were aout 23 pre-registered in the W Cat 4, but only 16 women showed up at the start line.
The Course: The hill climb is 12.5 miles with about 2000 feet of climbing. The first leg is a flat 4 1/2 miles along the lagoon. Right turn to Bolinas-Fairfax Road through the woods with some steep parts exceeding a 10% grade for 4 miles, followed by the 4 mile "Seven Sisters" stair-step climb to the finish.
The W Cat4 peloton were led out by a race official vehicle and started out at a sane pace (maybe about 25 mph but it felt easy with the draft and tail wind effect). We all behaved and rode in a double pace line. I was well-positioned about 4 riders back. We took the right turn to Fairfax-Bolinas cautiously and crossed the open cattle grate safely. We then started climbing and the group splintered. There were about ten women ahead of me at this point. I passed one women a few minutes later and was hoping that I might make some gains along the way. Soon some of the Men's Elite Cat 4 (this group started 5 minuted behind us) passed me and gave me some words of encouragement. I just climbed steadily and fell into a rhythm, trying to keep my HR up at 150-152. Soon I broke out onto the ridge and took on the Seven Sisters. The sun was hot on my face at this point and I poured some water down my back. I was taking sips along the way to keep hydrated. I passed a couple of the men's 55+ racers. I finished in 58:41, well off my goal of 55-56 minutes. I just didn't have the drive to psuh myself to the limits for this race. RFA and I have been in "active rest" for the month of September and have not been doing any sustained threshold hill climbing to train for this race. Not an "A" race in Dmitriy's eyes. I met RFA at the top - he had a good time of 1:01:57 - never had the pleasure of passing him!
The race was well-organized, and I look forward to doing it again next year and shaving minutes from my time!
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