Another Secret Revealed To Climb Faster

So I was doing one of training rides recently, heading from where I work in San Mateo over to Woodside, to climb part way up Kings Mtn Rd - it's related to my "secret" training program that I talked about in an earlier posting ( you can read all about it right here ).

Well, as I'm approaching Tripp Rd, where I start my timer for the climb up Kings Mtn Rd, I happened to pass by 3 cyclists that were heading in my direction. I was riding slightly faster than them, preparing for the grind up the climb.

Of course, they knew nothing about my "secret" training program - or me, for that matter! But it was clear that something inspired them to pick up their pace, in order to shadow me up the climb - or maybe just pass me by, which would not be too hard to do, since I'm not exactly the fastest climber in the world.

In fact, I'm a fairly poor climber that is attempting to mold myself into a decent, "average" climber. In this case, "average" means that I can finish mid-pack in the Low-Key Hill Climb series this year. And that is no small task - if you are "average" (meaning you can score 100.0 points on any of the climbs in that series), you can probably climb better than your typical recreational cyclist - and it means you can probably hang on in the main pack for a road race that involves some climbing. And that is my main cycling goal this year - climb well enough to just "hang in" during a road race that has some climbs, and not get dropped from the main pack...

Now, back to the 3 cyclists that started to shadow me as I started climbing Kings Mtn Rd...

Well, as I said earlier, I'm not sure what inspired them to up their pace and start to shadow me up the climb, but I'm guessing it might have been my SCCCC cycling kit.

I joined the SCCCC race team in the middle of last year, just after I got my racing license in May of 2007. At the time, I was able to purchase only 1 jersey - so I had to wear my usual black biking shorts (bibs, actually) and black cycling shoes. But at the end of 2007, we were able to put in our clothing order for 2008, and I decided to order a whole lot of goodies - a couple of jerseys (short sleeve and long sleeve), a couple of bibs (shorts and knickers), some vests (including a really nice thermal vest), shoe covers (even thermal ones!), a couple of skinsuits for time trials - all in all, several hundreds of dollars worth of cycling clothes!

So now I can get all decked out in my SCCCC kit when I go for rides - and I've noticed that I no longer have any desire to wear anything *but* my cycling kit - it's kind of like a badge of honor, I guess...

In my mind, I was thinking these 3 guys wanted to see if they could keep up with a "professional" road racer, which is who they might have thought I was - who knows? Maybe they imagined I was a super climber, like Kevin Metcalfe. Or Mark Edwards. Or Clark Foy. Or Tim Clark. Little did they know that I was just me - someone desperately trying to become an "average" climber - and nowhere in the league of those great climbers I just mentioned. I'm really built more for sprinting and time-trialing - I don't have that real lightweight body that is the trademark of so many of the great climbers - and I don't have the time to train enough to increase my power to the point where I can use brute force to overcome my larger body type.

But I guess when I realized these 3 guys had decided to jump onto my tail, some kind of magic power overwhelmed me - and I felt I had to try and not totally embarrass the racing team I represented with my kit - so I started to push just a little harder and faster than I might normally do at the beginning of the Kings Mtn climb...

I figured they would probably stay with me for a mile or so, then swoosh right by me, to let me know that they could easily beat a "professional" racer...

But that didn't happen! In fact, after just a 1/2 mile or so, I glanced back and saw that all 3 had dropped off my tail and were apparently in great duress - if Phil Liggett were commentating, I could hear him now: "Those boys will really have to dig deep into their suitcase of courage!" - or maybe: "Those boys are in a spot of bother on this climb!" - perhaps even this: "Those boys' legs will be screaming for them to stop!"...

And here's what I imagined Phil would be saying about my performance at that moment in time: "He's dancing on his pedals in a most immodest way!" - or perhaps: "He climbs like an angel!" - maybe even this: "There's Steve Rosen, turning over those massive gears!"...

Well, in any case, I realized that wearing my SCCCC kit seemed to inspire me to ride just a little harder - and hence, a little faster - than I might normally ride - and that day, I ended up getting to my destination spot on the climb (about 1/2 way up for that day's goal) in a record time for me - woohooo!!

Oh, and those 3 cyclists? Well, they totally dropped out of sight by the time I reached the Huddart Park entrance (about 1.4 miles up the climb from Tripp Rd) - and after I reached my pre-determined spot for the day (2.2 miles up the climb), I congratulated myself on my excellent time (well, excellent for me, anyway!) - and then proceeded to head back down the mountain. As I passed by the Huddart Park entrance, I saw those 3 cyclists, who had stopped to take a brief rest - and they had this look of total disbelief on their faces! I think they had imagined that I had ridden all the way to the top of Kings Mtn Rd and was now coming back down to head home! I just smiled at them, suggesting that that is exactly what I had done... :)

So you want to climb just a little faster than the next guy? Well, join a cycling climb - and be sure to order your kit - and wear it every time you ride...

And now you've learned just one more secret to climbing faster - your mental attitude can be all the difference between winning - or losing - the race...

...and wearing your kit doesn't hurt, either!

Preview of the 2008 Low-Key Hill Climb (LKHC) Series

For 2007, I watched on the sidelines with great interest as quite a few people participated in the the Low-Key Hill Climb series (check it out right here). I didn't do any of the climbs because I was so discouraged about how I had lost my climbing legs during the second half of 2007, when I got into racing big-time - but totally abandoned my great training program I had adhered to so religiously for the first half of 2007. Sigh...

But, since the LKHC participants seemed to enjoy my LKHC Converter I created for them (and me!) - you can check it out a previous blog entry about it here - I decided to attend the LKHC Awards ceremony last week at the Cupertino Community Hall - it was totally fun! I highly recommend you attend it next year - we got to see a Tour of California preview short film and other goodies, too. Ron Brunner created an excellent and very professional-looking summary video of the 2007 LKHC series of climbs - good work, Ron!

However, one highlight that was eagerly anticipated was the announced list of climbs for the 2008 LKHC series, starting October 1 this year.

I managed to remember the list of all 9 climbs, but don't remember the exact order (except for the first and last climbs, which are the same every year, by tradition - Montebello Rd is the first climb of the series and Mt Hamilton is the last climb of the series).

So - drum roll, please - here's the list for 2008:

1. Montebello Rd - 5.3 miles, 2030 feet
2. Metcalfe Rd - 2.2 miles, 1033 feet
3. Quimby Rd - 5.1 miles, 2000 feet
4. Alpine Rd (West) - 7.6 miles, 1950 feet
5. Montevina Rd - 3.9 miles, 1800 feet
6. Bear Gulch Rd (West) - 3.2 miles, 1020 feet
7. El Toyonal/Lomas Cantada - 2.8 miles, 1129 feet
8. Jamison Creek - 3.1 miles, 1470 feet
9. Mt Hamilton - 18.4 miles, 4360 feet

Here are a few quick notes on the above climbs:

For Montevina Rd, here's somebody's MotionBased.com recording of a ride they did:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2182336

For the El Toyonal/Lomas Cantada climb, it's in the Berkeley hills and was part of what someone called the Berkeley Hills Death Ride - here's their story (Note to self - I gotta try to do this ride one day!) :

http://www.inl.org/bicycle/deathride.html

For the Bear Gulch Rd West climb, here's somebody's MotionBased.com recording of a ride they did:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4692266

Also, note that the start of the Bear Gulch Rd West climb is also the entrance to Neil Young's Broken Arrow ranch, if you head towards the ocean - maybe he'll come out and watch the climbers that day!

It looks like the 2008 climbs will be pretty interesting - I'm planning on doing all of the climbs in the series for this year - and I'm hoping to be climbing well enough late in the year to score an average of 100.0 points for each of those 9 climbs.

Scoring 100.0 points (the median time) for any of those climbs will be a tough goal to reach, since I'm not a natural climber - so I'll have to be climbing better than I ever have in my entire life!

To give you an example of how fast I need to do each of those climbs, here is my best guess at what I need to do to score 100.0 points (the MEDIAN time) for each of those climbs - I've also added what I think will be the WINNING time:

1. Montebello Rd--5.3 miles--2030 feet--36:00 / 26:05
2. Metcalfe Rd--2.2 miles--1033 feet--18:00 / 13:20
3. Quimby Rd--5.1 miles--2000 feet--35:00 / 25:45
4. Alpine Rd (West)--7.6 miles--1950 feet--35:00 / 25:05
5. Montevina Rd--3.9 miles--1800 feet--32:00 / 23:10
6. Bear Gulch Rd (West)--3.2 miles--1020 feet--18:00 / 13:10
7. El Toyonal/Lomas Cantada--2.8 miles--1129 feet--20:00 / 14:30
8. Jamison Creek--3.1 miles--1470 feet--26:00 / 18:55
9. Mt Hamilton--18.4 miles--4360 feet--90:00 / 73:00

Bottom line - I have my work cut out for me! I need to lose about 20 pounds AND somehow increase my power by about 5% - neither one is an easy task. Or, I could lose just 10 pounds, but then I'd have to increase my power by about 10% - much harder! I'd rather lose that extra 10 pounds than try to increase my power by another 5% over the 5% I *already* need to increase it by - either way, it's a tall order and a big goal!

But that's what life's all about, right? Setting goals and then going for them - even if you come up a little short, you'll still be a lot better off than if you had never even tried in the first place...

Another "Secret" Training Program - Revealed!

For those of you following my blog (which means mostly Dennis Pedersen, of course!), you are aware of a "secret" training program that I started, in order to try and get my climbing legs back - you can read about it right here, in case your forgot about it...

Well, I'm happy to report that the "secret" training program is certainly starting to work - I'm only up to Day 8, which means my next ride up Kings Mtn Rd ("Day 9") will be a distance of 2.2 miles, with an elevation gain of about 800 feet. That ride will be about the half-way point up Kings Mtn Rd, which is a 4.3-mile climb that gains 1590 feet of elevation. My time for that half-way mark should be close to 15 minutes, which means I'll be able to zero in on a sub-30 minute time for that climb, which would be a new PB for me. As I lose a little more weight and gain some new power, I should be able to get that time down to just under 27 minutes by the end of the year, which is my eventual goal - at that point, I calculated I should be able to score 100.0 points on the Low-Key Hillclimb time for Kings Mtn (see the 2007 results for that climb right here). One of my big goals for 2008 is to average 100.0 points on all 9 of the climbs in this year's Low-Key Hillclimb series, which starts on October 1.

So, what is this "other secret" training program, you might be wondering? It's quite simple, really. I decided you just can't go out there and do the same ride up Kings Mtn every day - I actually did 3 days in a row one week, but you need to have some variety. So I had this new idea - I noticed that about this time last year, I was doing a bunch of rides that involved climbing up a variety of short, but steep climbs near where I work here in San Mateo.

In fact, I even scoped out a 42-mile ride that did almost 7000 feet of climbing by hitting 10 of those climbs - most of them are in the 0.5 mile to 1.2 mile range, but will climb 300 feet to 650 feet, meaning they each average something in the 9% to 12% range - pretty steep! I called this monster ride "The 10 Fingers of Death Ride" - you can see a recording of the entire ride right here - that recording was done in my car. But I then broke the ride up into a couple of parts, so I could easily do each half of the ride as one of my "lunch breaks" from work. I then proceeded to do the "Easy 5 Fingers of Death Ride" (check it out here) and the "Hard 5 Fingers of Death Ride" (view it here), since the first 5 climbs are, on average, a little easier than the last 5 climbs.

I noticed that a lot of the PBs I got in the first half of last year seemed to happen not too long after I had done some of those short, steep climbs - so I recently started mixing in some of those climbs into my training program, and noticed that they really seem to be helping me quite a bit. Hence, this is my other "secret" training program - doing regular rides up short, steep climbs. It obviously helps to build up leg strength, which is clearly important for climbing hills faster.

And there you have it...another "secret" training program...revealed!