It's time to ride. What more can I say? : Almost-Daily Diary : http://www.chainreactionblogs.com/diary

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It's time to ride. What more can I say?

We've earned mornings like this. Mid to upper 50s, clear skies, dry roads. The type of morning you don't mind waking up a bit early for. The main question, for me, is whether I can keep up with Kevin today.

Pretty large group; Kevin (my son, not the pilot), Todd (former Chain Reaction employee and now internist at Palo Alto Medical Clinic, specializing in Sports Medecine... could come in handy!), Eric, Marcus, Terry, Millo (who joined us up on top), Jan, and one more I think (Karen). I thought we were going to take it relatively-easy up the hill, and for the first 30 or so feet, we did. Then Todd went to the front and just sort of casually picked up the pace, such that my planned 9 minute time to the park entrance became 7:45. Hate that. Kevin was just behind me, but that was to be an anomoly as he tends to get stronger as the climb goes on.

In the middle of the climb I was having a bit of fun riding between Kevin and Bruno, back & forth a couple of times, not sure how long I could keep that up. At the wide-open section Kevin began to seriously pull ahead, such that I had to go back into Levi mode and gradually start to claw my way back up to him. Unfortunately, as soon as he got maybe 50 meters or so ahead, I watched as he went in an instant from full-power to dismounting the bike and went into a 3-minute-long seizure (very long for Kevin). Darn, as it was looking like he was going to get another sub-27 time. As he came out of it he started almost instinctively climbing back on his bike, almost before the seizure had completely gone away, but in moments he was back riding, nearly full-throttle. In the end his time was around 32 minutes, which just a few weeks ago would have been a typical time for him.

wolh7565 — Left-to-right, a piece of Millo, Kevin, Terry (background), Todd & Bruno

We had a nice & uneventful ride across Skyline and down 84 to west-side Old LaHonda, followed by a quick ride back up to Skyline. Kevin did fine the rest of the way, but wasn't quite up to speed after skipping Tuesday's ride.

Tomorrow Kevin rides with his cousin Ed, a sort of make-up ride for Tuesday, followed by rides on Sunday & Monday (and of course the regular Tuesday ride) designed to get us used to riding tough circuits several days in a row.

Post date: 2011-07-01 00:41:50
Post date GMT: 2011-07-01 07:41:50
Post modified date: 2011-07-01 00:41:51
Post modified date GMT: 2011-07-01 07:41:51