The first race of the Winter Park MTB Race Series began on Saturday June 13 with a 2200 ft ascent over 5.12 miles hill climb to 11,200ft. This is a tough race with no recovery time form the start. I like this race for three reasons, one – it’s a great climbing workout, two – it does show a good indication of fitness, by getting a pretty good reading on the LTHR, by using your average HR for the race, three – when the single track is open, getting back to the base is super fun!
I’m not a strong climber, so I use this race for training, and see to where my fitness is. This is the third year in a row of me racing this course, and each time I’ve beat my time.
This year, I beat my time by 19 seconds, last year I beat it by 2 minutes. Why not a big jump? Well, I peaked too early last year and fizzled out toward the end. I’m trying to pace myself more this year. I’m also focusing more on longer distances, such as the Fire Cracker 50 and the Breck 68 or 100. Also, this race was the fourth time riding my new Trek. So over all, I’m happy with the result.
One big plus for the race was that one of my athletes got a PR on the course, beating her time by over 4 minutes. This pleased me very much, and she was also very happy. I think she’ll get a big confidence boost.
View my race profile in TrainingPeaks You can see my HR and the grade of the climb!