Pescadero 35+ 4/5

CTL:128
TSB:23
Got the start of a saddle sore from sitting way too long on the fixie at Dunlap and had to cut back on riding this week and unintentionally peaked for this, at least according the PMC data, would have ridden differently to peak just for this, but having to stand up most of the time during rides makes it hard to do certain things.

Perfect day for this race with the fog burning off and the roads drying off. Really nice to have a race that is only one hour from home and everything from reg to marshalling is well done. Curt Ferguson is there to support his son and offers to feed me on the hill, and I take him up on it, and only take one bottle with me.

Last time I did this race I got dropped on the first hill on Stage so aim to make it through one lap this time. Start off with 74 other coots and we take it fairly sedate until after the machine gun statue on Stage. As the road goes up, we go a bit harder but we only drop a few riders. This makes the first descent interesting with seventy plus riders, thankfully only a few close calls and one guy locking up the rear in the hairpin and saving it. This makes the trip up easier, but it feels hard and I only catch my breath towards the end. Get my feed from Fergie, woohoo, and try to drink some before we go up the next hill. We make the turn up Haskins and riders start dropping like flies. This still leaves about thirty riders about halfway up and I just can't do it anymore and have to ease up and watch the pack pull away. So close...

Time trial on the descent and don't pick anybody up and no one catches me for about twenty minutes. Finally someone catches me as we get to the school and I have company for the last lap. Happy to have someone to help break the wind and drive the pace, hard to go hard sometimes solo, and we pick up four or five riders by the Stage climbs. Jose from Pen Velo and I drop them on the climbs and we prepare for the last time up 84 with a two man time trial. The Cat 5 lead pack of of seven riders catches us along with some other 35+ 4/5 rider but we let them go and ride ou own race. Jose wants to give up but I encourage him to keep going as I could use the help until we start going Haskins again, and he makes it almost to the turn instead of giving up way before then. We part and I go up as hard as I can, but it's not nearly as hard as I went up the first time.

The first two climbs up Stage total up to about ten minutes of climbing at 4.3 w/kg, and the climb up Haskins until I got dropped was at about 4.3 w/kg. So all one needs to do is about four repeats of 4.3w/kg at ten minutes a pop. Even though I got dropped on Haskins, it's my fastest time up it by about a minute. The first hour is much easier than my time trial fifty minutes last week, but I didn't spend much time over threshold during the time trial versus twenty minutes in the first hour this week.

PAvg: 184
PNorm: 219
T: 2:30
C: 88
S: 29.9