Le Tour De Bowness Stage 1 - Hill Climb Time Trial

Goal for the race: Finish in under 5 minutes

Today's course was the hill climb which was a race to the top of COP via the road beside the bobsled track. The course was 1.25km with an 100m altitude gain.

I got to the course fairly early and went for a one hour spin on the Bowness Road and the Bow River pathways. They opened up the course for pre-riding but once is enough for me so I didn't pre-ride it. I had already done the hill a a few times on groups rides so I was fairly familiar with the course.

After talking to a bunch of people and generally just killing time it was go time.
I got in line, got my bike weighed. and lined up with my heat.
The 2 guys in my heat looked over at me and asked "Are you any good at hill climbing?" and I responded "I don't really know...I guess we'll find out...".

My start was really good...I was leading my heat up into the first hill. I settled into my rhythm pretty early but one of the guys grabbed another gear and was pushing the pace pretty fast. The other guy grabbed onto my wheel and just drafted me up most of the hill. My plan was to not chase anyone during the race and just do my thing. It's too easy on this course to go out too hard and then blow up halfway up.

I could already feel my legs burning by the first switchback but I kept pushing anyways...I had only had to suffer for 5 minutes. During the race I was so focused on keeping my pace that I lost count of what switchback I was on. All of a sudden I was approching turn 7 and my plan was to start driving at turn 6. I stood up and just hammered the final stretch to try and get close to the guy in front.

At the top I was greeted by Ken (Good luck on the TR!) and his wife (Good luck on the 70.3!) who were taking pictures of the race and I told him I think I did prettty good...but I should have gone a little harder near the end. Seeing as this was my first TT ever...I'm pretty happy with my performance. I was told it's very hard to gauge your energy levels and thresholds on TTs unless you do them fairly often so I'm just glad I made it all the way to the top.

Result:
11/42
Time: 4:33min

While it felt awesome to get the race out of the way, knowing I did it and placed fairly high is an awesome feeling. I wish I had gone a little harder though. I can't wait to beat my personal record next year...hahaha.
This road racing thing is becoming quite fun.