Having ridden up and down the mountain a few times with a couple of different groups it was time to race up in the annual LMBC 2014 Ben Lomond King of the Mountain. I had a goal of doing it in under 2HRs. The ride is roughly 24Km and I gained 1,400M of elevation from the Blessington Hall to the Ben Lomond Creek Inn.

I got a good start but went out a bit hard and about 1/4 into the race I had to slow a bit to get my heart rate down to 160 again and quite a few I had passed came back past me. I managed to catch and pass quite a few of them in the next section once I got back into a rythm. Kathryn Woolston who won the QOM (Queen of the Mountain) was drafting behind me along this section until I slowed a bit to much for her and she passed me. I caught her again just before we hit the road coming out of the single track which takes up about half of the race.

Once on Ben Lomond road you just have to get in a comfortable rhythm  and grind your way up the hill. A group of about 6 in front of me kept me at bay for a while till they started dropping off but Kathryn Woolston and another rider gradually edged away from me. I passed another rider just as we got to the rangers registration booth and I quickly pulled away on the flattish section. I got to the base of Jacobs Ladder and started passing most of the ‘Breakaways’ who started an hour earlier than we did.

I passed Sharon taking photos with 2 corners of the ladder to go but I was not in a mood for conversation and made a couple of I don’t want to talk grunts as I passed by heading for the top. Once on the plateau the speed started to increase again rapidly but it is an uphill climb from there to the finish. I passed another guy who immediately got into my draft and held my back wheel all the way to just short of the finish line. After drafting him all the way across the plateau I was not having him go past me on the finish line so upped the pace with about 200M to go and broke him on the uphill finish and crossed 9 seconds in front of him.

Sharon grabbed the bike as I sort of fell off it panting away. I came in in 1:44 and I was pretty pleased with that. Overall I came in 35th on my first attempt and 16th in the masters category. I had to stay warm quickly as the temp on the top was quite low but a fantastic day for racing with no wind. I have a benchmark time now for next year where we will see if I can get into the 1:30 bracket?

Overall results here / age group results here / Ben Lomond Finish Video here