Race Report: 2023 Patterson Pass Road Race - Men's 35+ 1/2/3

Race: 2023 Patterson Pass Road Race - Men's 35+ 1/2/3

Date: August 6, 2023

AVRT racers: Nat Green

Result: Nat Green (DNP/19)

Course:  3 laps of this. Starts with the 4-mile 1,100 ft climb of Patterson Pass, has a fast descent into the second climb which is 2 miles and 500 ft with varied grades. Then there’s a bit of a lumpy descent to the backside of the course which is flat for a bit before opening up to a fast descent all the way to the finishing straight, which is a mile long 200 ft kicker to the finish line.  There is usually a powerful headwind as you get farther and farther up the Patterson Pass climb, but this year it wasn’t as much of a factor.  The heat, though, was intense.  Despite a pretty early start, it was in the 80s by lap one, and high 90s by lap two.   

Strava: Patterson Pass 35+ 1/2/3 - DNF | Ride | Strava

Nutrition: Had some food before the start and brought two bottles of mix.  Picked up a third bottle on lap two.

Race:    This had one of the bigger master’s fields of the year, with the usual strong teams from ThirstyBear (Brian Schuster, Piers Barry, Ariel Hermann, Rob Whittier), Velo Kings, and Work Health Solutions, including Adam White, who has a close to perfect record of winning master’s races this year.  Other strong riders in the field included Eugene Chan from PenVelo, Will Riffelmacher from the Olympic Club, and former Australian continental pro and YouTube guy Chris Miller. 

I had no teammates, so my plan was to sit in as long as I could and save energy, since I thought this would be a battle of attrition, given the heat and very tough course.  I think that was the correct strategy – unfortunately, I was one of the people who fell victim to that attrition (along with about half of the people on the day). 

First lap the pace was high up Patterson Pass, but I didn’t have much trouble staying up near the front.  I found myself drifting towards the back of the field on the descent, despite my speed being in the high 40s.  I was near the back at the bottom when we took a right onto Flynn Road to begin the second climb, and noticed the group surged a bit there.  I closed the gap pretty easily, but failed to make a good enough note to remember that for lap two, which was costly.

The pace up Patterson was a little faster the second time around.  I was still near the front but was really feeling the heat towards the top of the climb and starting to cramp, and despite having had three water bottles by that point, was beginning to worry about completing another two laps. I again found myself towards the back of the field down the Patterson descent before the turn on Flynn Road.  This time there was an even bigger surge out of the turn and a few of us were gapped off the back.  What was easy to close on lap one then became tremendously difficult on lap 2, as I realized I was cramping and dehydrated.  A couple of us tried to work together, but the group was getting farther, not closer, and I was putting out less and less power as I was cramping.

That was basically my day, as I called it after lap 2.  I felt like my climbing ability was fine for the field, but my heat acclimation was nowhere near enough (noon rides have been more like 60-70 degrees this year, not 90-100).  Next year I might try pre-hydrating more and seeing if I can go out of my way to get more heat acclimation in before the race.  Adam White ended up outsprinting Chris Miller to take the win, by the way.