This last weekend I Finlay made it back to a race I've been meaning to do for a second time for several years: Mt. Harrison hill climb. About 4 years ago I won the first ever running of this race over a small but very talented field. Since then I've always had something come up to keep me from going back to try and repeat. This year I finally had my chance. I knew my fitness was somewhat sub-optimal but in classic me style, deep down I hoped that there would be some mysitic connection between me and the mountain that would help me and my slacker training schedule beat a field that included a national level pro mountain biker and a former world champion.
view from the bottom:
Soon after the start the true big guns of the day dropped me without even noticing. As the gaps became established I took my count of guys up the road to see I was in 10th place. I tried to set a rhythm for myself and noticed something kinda weird. I had been listening to Daft Punk on the drive over and now my exhaled breaths sounded like and matched up exactly with the last half of the song "Human After All" (the one playing on the blog if you havn't turned it off). It's a little depressing when you're alone on the mountain and still being taunted the whole way up!
By the end two different guys had caught me but I managed to re-drop them both. It was pretty demoralizing when one of them was talking to me and assumed I was a cat 4/5 racer, there's no way to sound cool when you reply that you're actualy a cat2........
view from the top:
When I finaly hit the top, I kept my 10th place but managed to drop a few notches on my ego-meter. On the bright side the only time I noticed the altitude (finish was at about 9400' per the GPS in my phone) the aching in my chest actualy felt really good.Have to end with a flashback to when I was actualy cool:
1 comment:
when you were this cool you went home to an empty apartment...i think you're cooler than ever.
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