Priorities and PRs

Last night marked the 2010 Town Mountain Hillclimb in Asheville. I first did this event 2 years ago, and missed it last year when I went to McMinnville to race. Ever since the TT up Wintergreen a few weeks ago, I have not been my best. Lots of travel, a trip to Philly, some long days at work, and the race last weekend has really taken it out of me. While my family comes first in life, my career is a close 2nd since this enables our family to live the life we do and enables the 3rd priority in my life - cycling - to feature as it does! Unfortunately I missed the time trial on Thursday night due to a late case, and my schedule has now precluded me attending the Assault on Mount Mitchell on Monday . . . c'est la vie.
The great thing about being on a solid team is that you don't have to be at your best every race to have great results. So even with a "bad" couple of weeks for me, we still pulled out 3 wins in 2 weeks! Yesterday culminated this as Andy Applegate won his 2nd race in less than a week!
Personally I had a solid ride after a challenging week outside of racing. I was a little nervous that I would even make the event, since I had a 1PM surgery and thought it might run a bit late. Fortunately the stars aligned and I was able to get home, warm up and make it to the start around 6PM. I pulled my mental focus together and decided to focus on keeping a steady, conservative pace to start the first steep section. My plan was to then maintain my heart rate until I hit the last section and start to punch it again. I felt good and drove my heart rate up steadily from 175bpm to eventually 187 at the finish. I looked down and saw 19:45 - not great, then I remembered that I started my timer 30s early . . . sweet! I took 35s off my PR! While I didn't win, Andy did, I set a PR, and the rain held off long enough for me to get back to the car.

Full results are here: http://www.ashevillewomenscycling.com/TMHC/2010TMHCResults.html

Check out Christopher Graphics: http://paulchristopher.smugmug.com/Sports/Bicycle

And a big thank you to all of our sponsors!