Oregon Uphill CHallenge (OUCH) Time Trial

As I mentioned in my last post, I am going to do something pretty gruelling this weekend (the weekend after STP). I will be competing in the Oregon Uphill CHallenge, also known as OUCH. The route is 3,816 feet of elevation gain in 16.5 miles. For those of you from Montana, or familiar with Going to the Sun Highway, this is more elevation gain than Going to the Sun highway from Lake McDonald. Also, the elevation is done in less distance than the ride from Lake McDonald to the top of Going to the Sun.

I have been training to go fast over flat roads for very long distances, so I have taken routes that intentionally avoid hills. This ride will be nothing but one big hill so my training has not exactly prepared me for this event. I plan on making the climb in under 90 minutes, which means my HR will be much higher than I am used to. I will not know exactly how to attack this hill, I am not exactly sure how I should be doing the negative split for this style of event, etc. We will see how this goes.

I was convinced by a friend to do this last week, on Tuesday (three days after STP) and we would go out and see how we could do. Since I trained so well for STP my legs were hardly sore on Tuesday, so I thought this would be a good idea. I agreed to do it. We then went up and pre rode the course on Wednesday (4 days after STP) and my guess is that on Sunday I will be able to do OUCH in under 90 minutes, based on some other guestimates based off my Bald Peak hill climb times. We left right after work on Wednesday and climbed up the route, my first crack, with no warm up or previous knowledge, I was able to climb it in 94 minutes. I am now feeling confident I can make this climb in under 90 minutes. The other funny thing is that I will be doing this climb twice within the 8 days after STP. In addition, my buddy Robert who convinced me to do this, and I are going to do this climb every Wednesday night until it starts getting too cold and dark to do the climb.

It turns out that my other buddy Tony is going to be doing OUCH as well. He is a great athlete and he will probably do the climb in 60 to 65 minutes. It will be great to see Tony at the race, and it will be nice to have another friendly face there. Tony has been great in helping me figure out what I need to do for my first race, and giving me some great pointers. It turns out that Tony, and all guys who are at his caliber will be starting after me. What this means for me is I will be passed by these guys who fly up the hills.

I am not sure how well I will handle it mentally because I don't like being passed, but it does bring out the most competitive side out of me. The thing that will be really cool is watching these guys go buy me like I was practically standing there. That part will be really cool. These guys who are Cat 1/2/3's are in amazing shape, and watching them from the sideline has always been fun, and now seeing them in comparison to me, it will be very eye openning and motivating.

I will let you know how it goes after I am done with OUCH!