Cougar Mountain TT 2010

I am not totally sure how or why I agreed to do the cougar mountain time trial yesterday but I did it. Well actually I know - Eric Kutter was trying to get people to join him and Kyle said he would so I signed him up right then and there(no backing out lol). Then when they sent out an email asking for if anyone wanted early start times Kyle replied yes for my wife and I... Needless to say they were confused since I was not signed up but then I figured why not.

It is about a 2 mile hill climb time trial with an average gradient of 7.2% (L’Alpe D’Huez is 7.9%) ans about 1,200 feet of climbing. This chart says it all...

Anyway yesterday morning we headed over grabbed our bibs and went for a good :30 min warm up ride before the 9:00a start of the race. I felt a bit out of place on my TT bike but since I sold my road bike it was my TT or my single speed.. TT it is. Eric and Kyle both went before me though I was the 1st girl to start and the 8th person. I had no expectations since I have never ridden or even seen the hill I just knew that some of the steepest parts were at the end.

I started up the hill and immediately I was in zone 5 (188 bpm for me) . Since it is steep enough to stand up most of the way I just did a funny game of just 5 rotations standing 5 sitting to mix up the muscle groups. Since I had no idea of what the hill did I just watched my heart-rate and milage and tried to keep breathing. I had to take my inhaler about half way which was hard since I was weesing so bad at that part but luckily it helped and I just kept going up.



I was expecting to get passed but I got passed right away by the guy who started :30 seconds behind me.. Then later by a girl who started a minute (who swims at the same masters group though in a different lane). Before the end I got passed by a couple of other guys.. I just focused on my time and my heart rate and just kept going.



In the end I wound up finishing in 17:44 which got be 91st place overall (out of 106) and 5 out of 5 women.. A bit shocked only 5 women started... but hey I was the only crazy person who did it on a tri bike (that I saw) and I still beat about 20 guys. I will defiantly be adding this hill to may training for Ironman CDA 2011 because it felt like a longer version of some of the main climbs on the bike course and I will do the race again next year but on a road bike...