All posts by Mike

Another long dry spell from posting

Been an interesting last couple of weeks. Finally broke through the really slow times up Kings and just generally feeling badly; I had a string of pretty strong rides, maybe three in a row, that made me feel hopeful for the future! Would have loved for the temperatures to be a bit warmer though; this morning was the third consecutive ride with temps below 39F up on Skyline. Last Sunday’s ride was different than most; it was pretty gray and drizzly-looking up on Skyline so we stayed on this side of the mountain, but did a pretty unusual ride in the high foothills above Los Altos.

And then there was this morning. No legs, no lungs, nothing. It was an accomplishment simply doing the full ride with Kevin, Kevin & Karen (actually, Karen doesn’t do the full Tuesday/Thursday rides; she skips the West Old LaHonda loop so she can get to work on time). I didn’t get that feeling of being stronger as the ride went on, but the rest of the day definitely went better than it would have, had I not ridden. There’s something very pleasant about your body giving you a gentle reminder that you rode, a slight soreness that says yes, you did something.

The photo above is from last Tuesday’s ride, with a Raven carrying a small mouse across the road in front of Kevin. And below is the strava mapping for Sunday’s unusual ride.

It doesn’t make sense. So flat Sunday, felt so much stronger this morning.

Sunday. It was supposed to be a routine ride to Pescadero, but something felt really off; just wasn’t feeling it up Old LaHonda and didn’t get better on the other side (as it usually does). Maybe it didn’t help having to dodge all the cars coming up West Old LaHonda due to some traffic issue somewhere. So instead we did the quick run straight out to a San Gregorio (stopping for coffee of course!) and up Tunitas.

We passed a couple of women Kevin’s age before the steep stuff; when he dropped me, my place was quickly replaced by one of the two women, who was determined to try and stay on his tail on the way up. The two of them finished the climb about 5 minutes ahead of me?, thankfully just 5 minutes because I was finally feeling a bit better.

Then Tuesday. A totally different version of me showed up, able to push hard all the way to the park entrance before circling to wait for Kevin. Karen was on the ride too, and it wouldn’t have been too tough for me to ride with her to the top, but I was a bit concerned about leaving Kevin behind, as he was having some vision issues (an occasional result of his epilepsy meds) this morning.

I have a feeling Thursday will see the return of the version of me that rode last Sunday.