Truthfully, I prefer the Tuesday version to Thursday’s, because the ride up through Huddart Park (instead of taking Kings the whole way) is a lot harder on me. But today, I figured, what the heck. Go for it. Get out there and die trying. And I did. Not die, but tried really hard. And with the two-fastest guys in attendance (Keith and Marcus), it was the right day for a really hard effort.

Besides Marcus & Keith we also had Karen, Karl, Eric and “Pilot” Kevin. Younger Kevin stayed home, some sort of a short-term stomach bug that might have resulted in a variant of Greg LeMond’s “bad peach” story had he ridden. I won’t describe the details, but you’ll find the reference easy to decode if you google it. I managed to stay within sight of Marcus & Keith through the park, and even posted my 3rd-best time for that segment. It did not, however, translate to a fast ride up Kings, as I circled around a bit at the top of the park, waiting for the rest, and didn’t have much left in my legs for the remainder of the climb anyway.

On Skyline the story was Marcus, all the way. He did a heroic pull across the top, giving me a view of little else but his rear wheel. Not sure why I had to take the 2nd spot in the paceline, since the draft is easier if you drop back a few riders, but that’s where I was. Part of it was simply a desire on my part to ride myself into the ground this morning. Whatever the case, Marcus’s engine was running strongly and we were all hitched to it.

A bit of a headwind on the descent to West Old LaHonda, but not so much that I wasn’t able to head to the front for a pull, relieving Marcus. West Old LaHonda was at a relatively-casual pace, which was fine by me.

Strava gave me a suffer score of 109, relatively-high for the typical Tuesday/Thursday-morning rides (usually between 90-100), but I’m thinking it was accurate. First time in ages my legs really felt like they’d been ridden hard after a morning ride. I like that.