All posts by Mike

This is how both Kevin and I have felt the past few rides…

Personal stuff

Turning back the clock to July 20, 2008. Not quite the same look, but maybe a similar feeling.
The past few rides have been tough. Really tough. A lot tougher than they should be. Hard to say exactly what’s going on; Kevin did score his all-time PR on Tunitas just a few weeks ago. What’s happened since? Did the earth’s gravity dramatically increase? Or is there just a bit of a worn-out, beaten-down, I-need-a-break thing going on?

That photo, from July 20, 2008, shows a really big Kevin with a really big heart. He loved to climb but really wasn’t built for it. He still looks a lot more like a classics type of guy than a climber, but climbing is his thing. Me too, but I was never that heavy. I did get up to 180-something for a while, and that was pretty awful. My racing weight had been between 133-154, and has now settled in around 160 or so. I can definitely tell the difference even a few pounds makes, so when I look at that photo of Kevin from 2008, and compare him to today, no wonder he’s a whole lot faster.

But lately, the wonder is why it feels like we’re as slow as he was then, with no good reason. It almost feels like there’s some sort of ultra-low-grade flu that has no specific symptoms but just zaps strength. I’m thinking it’s likely stress; things remain not just busy at the shop but the percentage of “high maintenance” situations seems to be increasing, which wears you down. And vacations; seems like everyone on staff is going on a vacation now or soon and who am I to complain about that, since my wife and I leave on October 27th? But even that vacation has been a pretty stressful experience from a planning standpoint; I think we’re on the 4th of 5th revision of dates and flight itinerary, and have had to move many of the “on the ground” pieces of the puzzle around as well.

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been doing a really poor job of maintaining the almost-daily diary, which has been slipping to weekly. This is my place to think and thrash ideas around, and when you get behind on that, there’s this weird thing where, the further and further you get behind, the tougher it is to get back on track. What’s one more day of dereliction to duty?

But. Could be that we’re just one massively-tough ride away from a full reset, bringing us back to normal. That’s what I’m thinking.

Still some work to do! OK, a *lot* of work to do

Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

There was no way we were going to do a wimp-out ride today. No 43-mile just-up-West-Alpine or maybe quick run out 84 and back Tunitas. Had to kick it up at least over 50 miles, despite neither Kevin nor I feeling really great lately. But just had to get the job done.

It started out slightly, just slightly, on the cool side, and with fog visible up on Skyline, we wisely chose to go for base layers and leg warmers. And just as wisely, within the first couple of miles, off came the leg warmers, and we wished we weren’t wearing the base layers! It warmed up quickly! Not hot, ever; highest temp we saw was maybe mid-70s or so. Slow? Yeah, it was slow, 25-something heading up Old LaHonda, and just under an hour on West Alpine. Oh, didn’t I say we wouldn’t be doing West Alpine? Yeah, well, we were going to head up West Alpine and maybe either head down Page Mill and loop around Los Altos before heading back, or continue south on Skyline and descend 9 and Redwood Gulch before heading home on the flats. But those would have been too obvious, maybe too easy, so instead we go for the unusual, heading north on Skyline all the way to… 92. It did finally get a bit cool at the northern end of the ride, but we also started feeling a lot better once we headed north of Sky Londa. I think it was the cokes we bought there; Kevin thinks it was the Snickers bar. Whatever, we finally started feeling like this was a good, fun ride.

Plus, it’s been ages since we’ve been on the northern end of Canada Road, and kinda fun doing it with a tail wind!