Hawk Hill Hell

Where does that road go?

A few years after we moved to Absarokee, this random road appeared in the middle of the Absarokee --> Columbus drive that sliced through a dark pine forest straight up onto a hill. It caught my eye for years, until I finally did some recon the other day, and found out it dead ends basically, but does provide one nice, tough, accessible, short but grueling climb.

New Man; New Training Plan

Becoming more competitive has involved two specific things:
1) More training-specific rides
2) Train at what I don't like
I used to ride mostly for fun. To win races, I'm having to often ride when it isn't fun. Also, I used to be okay at long, steady climbs, but bad at punchy ones, the short ones- I hated them.
So, hill interval training is a focus this year, basically: short, punchy climbs, then rest, repeat, etc.
This is the exact type of ride I never would have done in the past. This year, I set out to do exactly that the other day. Again, and again. All day. And the new road, which is called Upper Hawk Valley btw, wasn't good for much else, but it was absolutely perfect for this.

Late but Auspicious Start

Life kind of creeped up, plus some tech issues, and my prep sucked for this. So, I left town very late. But it was great timing because the girls VB team was on their way to state, and I glommed on to the parade, so I left town with a firetruck escort, and most of the locals out on main street saluting and waving.

When I got there, the weather was perfect. It wouldn't last, but it was nice while it did. I started out. My initial confidence faded almost instantly. The wind picked up, it was tricky to regulate the temperature between the rising sun and the cooling wind.
A visit from the fam cheered me up. Their support is so critical to my success. Always nice.
They came back later with breakfast, which helped a lot, and they took Kip. All in all, Kip did amazing. He was with me for half of the day. So, he did about 20+ miles, and over 4000' of climbing on the day.

My music helped a lot. I also listened to a lot of podcasts that day. Lots of the Dollop and Dr. Laura. Also, there were little spots of character on the trail that kept me going. Around the 1/4 mark of the uphill there is a tree that is labelled as such. Love it.

All told, I did 27 intervals, I was hoping for 40+. Oh well. Another in a string of failures in terms of meeting training goals, but I'm not too worried right now. All things considered, it was a great ride, a solid training effort, and a surprisingly fun way to spend the day. Were it not for the weather, I would have straight up loved it.