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Mt Akagi Race

theBlob

Bokeh master
Sep 28, 2011
3,014
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Takaaki and I entered he Akagi Hill climb race this year. 1348m 20.8km

It was to be my first ever bicycle race. I wasn't really expecting much of a result as my prep had been pretty disorganized. Anyway we got up the the area on Saturday registered and went for a drive up the course to scope it out. We had done a practice runa few weeks back in heavy rain and lightning so I kind of knew what to expect in terms of pain.

On Sunday we got an early start and got or places in our respective start groups, I was about 150 people back from the start of mine. So as we started off and just before the line I started moving up as I figured the faster guys would be up there and if I was going to get a draft up the lower flatter sections of the course then I should be positioned to tag the faster guys coming through. My plan worked quite well, I bunny hopped from group to group and soon was following a guy who was running the pace that was good for me. I followed him up to the 8 km mark, then as the road flattened and crossed a bridge I jumped and gave it a bit of hammer, when I looked back him and the other guy who was behind me were back about 50m or so.

It got steeper after that as we hit the switch backs no -one came past me until 2 really fast old guys blew by I tried hopping on their tail but gave up after about 50m.

As we got near the top it started to flatten out again I put started to bring my power up for the run home, I ran the last 600m at about 360W and crossed the line 52nd out of 952 in my class with a time of 1:12:10 at 293W

It was a wierd experience as there were about 3000 people entered I think and I was passing multiple people every second from the moment I started to the moment the race ended. it was seriously 3 or 4 wide cyclists for the entire 20.8km.

The only negative is that I seem to have strained my hamstrings right on the sit bones in that last run to the line and am in quite a bit of pain. I ran 53/38 - 12-30 set up so I spent almost all my time in the saddle, I probably should have got out of the saddle more but I found it better metabolically to just chug away rather than be in and out of the saddle, like I used to ride. But I think my legs or should I say ass wasnt prepared for this length and intensity in this position...

Takaaki kicked ass in his class coming a very impressive 12th place with a 1:04. Well done mate, you are just getting faster and faster. Very impressive.

This is the course for those interested...

 
Congrats on your impressive results at your first race event!
Hope you recover from the pain and kick Takaaki's ass soon.
 
Over 1300m of climbing in 20km sounds like a great hill to ride. Might have to head out there myself for a ride sometime soon. Good training workout.
 
Well done lads! Hopefully I'll see you at some of the HCs coming up next year.
 
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