I’ve been working on this day for a year now. There is a hugely popular climb that starts about 7 miles from my house (perfect warm-up distance). It goes up Deer Creek canyon and then heads up High Grade road. It’s about 12 miles long and my goal since I started riding again last year has been to make it to the top in under an hour. As you can see, I made a few attempts last year…

2004
6/12 – 1:20:00 9.6mph
6/19 – 1:17:02 9.3mph
6/26 – 1:09:14 10.4mph
7/11 – 1:12:42 9.9mph
7/17 – 1:09:42 10.3mph
7/24 – 1:10:53 10.1mph
8/14 – 1:04:34 11.1mph
9/04 – 1:04:03 11.2mph
9/11 – 1:15:11 9.6mph
9/11 – 1:05:53 10.9mph
9/18 – 1:03:30 11.3mph

Last Sept. was my fastest time out of the bunch. I was very dedicated with my training and diet all winter and felt a little anxious about the ride today – more than six long, cold months had passed since my last try. Did all that work do any good?? There would be nothing worse than going through all of that and not seeing the improvement. Well, my fears were unfounded:

2005
4/23 – 55:08 12.9mph

I beat the tar out of that climb!