Race Report: 2023 Mt. Diablo Challenge – Women

Race: Mt. Diablo Challenge

 Date: October 1, 2023

AVRT racers: Lora Maes, Louise Thomas, Rachel Hwang, Robin Betz 

Top Result: Rachel Hwang 1/15 (Age Group) 6/126 (Overall Female), Louise Thomas 2/15 (Age Group), Robin Betz 3/15 (Age Group), Lora Maes 3/16 (Age Group)

Course: 11.2 miles, 3249 ft hill climb

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9959486695

Race Recap: (Rachel Hwang’s perspective)

My goal going into this race was to get under 1 hour, and to use my heart rate and RPE to measure how hard I should be going.

With that said, I got to my wave start (Wave 3) 1.5 minutes late, and so booked it in the beginning trying to catch up to the mass and draft behind them.  I saw Louise on the way up.

While I did want to draft behind others and help others around the same speed pull each other up, as I caught up to people, I did exactly that, and kept going if I had the energy.  What I liked about this race was that at some points, I could draft and pull as I wanted, but could keep going and constantly chase people down.  However, I do not think I did a good job drafting on the flat parts.  Because this is an individually timed race, I pulled more than I wanted to and did not conserve energy well in the sections I could have done so.  In addition, it was really windy with lots of crosswinds and headwinds, so I should have tried drafting more, and there were many moments of me smashing uphill against the wind by myself.

I honestly had no measure of how I was doing on time the entire way up, and kept looking at my heart rate on my Apple Watch. It stayed around 173 (goal of averaging 177) for the most part when I checked. Around 1100ft left, I was watching the elevation profile on my Garmin.

When I got close to the end, right before the wall, there were a ton of people standing and cheering, and I got a bit of adrenaline so sped up, however, the wall got me and I STRUGGLED hard up that.  I was wheezing and going at a snail’s pace trying to make it up.  When I crossed the finish line, I almost felt like puking. 

When I saw my result for the first time back at the bottom, 59:52.5, I was both happy that I was under an hour, but thought I could have done better.  In retrospective, I could have pushed harder through the entire race.  But this is by far one of my favorite races and I will definitely be back.

 Nutrition: 1/5 of a bottle of tailwind and a gel halfway up because I didn’t have time to take it at the start