Hill Climb
Heather at the Silver Start Hill Climb
Trevor here… What endurance sports activity is more painful than an Ironman? A 1 hour hill climb bike race is what. A completely different type of pain, however. Instead of the leg withering fatigue you experience in an Ironman, you get the lung burning muscle shredding heart pounding pain of a max effort suffer fest (Dramatic, I know). Despite the knowledge of said pain, Heather and I jumped at the chance to race a local bike race up Silver Star mountain in Vernon, BC. As a Junior cyclist (14 years ago!!) I did this race when it first started up so wanted to give it a go again. Unfortunately I don’t remember my time from back then, but I do know the guy that won 14 years ago won again yesterday – Olav Stana. If you’re a cyclist in Canada, particularly the west coast of Canada, you’ll know who Olav is. I’ll have to look and see, but I know he’s won the Masters World championships for cycling at least once. Probably more than once, actually. The guy is impressive, he’s over 50 years old now and annihilated us all by over 3 minutes on a 53 minute climb. I managed to hang on for second after going out a bit too hard in a lame pursuit of Olaf. Heather won the women’s race and made a few of the manly men on full carbon 13 pound climbing steeds angry by passing them on her Blue T16 Triathlon Bike (everyone loved the bikes, but couldn’t believe we entered a hill climb road race with them). I’m assuming they didn’t know who Heather was and to get ‘chicked’ by a chick on a bike with aero bars and two bottle cages hanging off the back of her seat wasn’t fun for their egos. Suck it up boys, heehee.
It was a good jump start to the post Ironman training. Energy systems are feeling really good and we’re keen to get back into the real training. We’re both going to hit up the Osoyoos Desert Half Iron on the 12th of July. Not sure how that’ll shake up but we’re both feeling decent so I would hope we’ll be feeling ready to race. From there it’s Ironman Canada prep for me, and Heather will be gearing up solely for the World Champs in Hawaii. Perhaps another Ironman 70.3 before October to keep the racing mentality fresh and ready to go.
Hi Trevor,
Super ride up Silver Start! Your race report made me smile. The guys behind Heather is exactly the way I felt behind you. I still cant believe you did that on a tri bike. By the way you two were looking pretty good deck out in your team kits and sweet looking tri bikes. The skull and cross bones were definitely the highlight! I bridged up to you for the start of the second climb (km 2ish) and you made me hurt so bad I went right back where I came from. I wanted to think that my group of 4 was chasing you down but I only saw you once or twice after that point. Super job. Keep up the good work!
Jason Kilmartin said this on July 3, 2009 at 8:05 am |
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the comment. Was a fun race for sure. The tri bike actually climbs quite well, and seeing as I ride in that position all the time I was feeling quite at home – outside of the weezing lungs that is. I was looking over my shoulder the whole way up praying you weren’t coming. See you on the road. Trevor
trevorandheather said this on July 3, 2009 at 12:05 pm |
Heather,
I can think of a lot more fun things to do on your birthday than racing in Osoyoos, but afterwards there will be a chocolate cake waiting here for you in Kelowna!
Good luck to you and Trevor!
Mom
Linda Danforth said this on July 3, 2009 at 3:29 pm |