How does Kevin do it? Climb like that, I mean?

IMG_0761_50_SHADES_MAYIMG_0754_WOLHYep, another day of gray! Wonder if there are stats for “gray” days? We keep track of rain, we keep track of temperature, but is there a “gloom” index? If so, I’d have to think this May would rate extremely high!

Today it was the usual coastal run, up Old LaHonda, out to Pescadero for lunch, Stage Road north and then over Tunitas & down Kings. Kevin wasn’t his usual climbing monster on Old LaHonda, lagging just a bit behind me, and Haskins was taken at a pretty casual pace too. Perhaps the turtles at the duck pond were a sign?

IMG_0755_TURTLESBut after the fueling stop in Pescadero, Kevin started showing signs of life, actually climbing the three hills on Stage at a pretty good clip, quite a bit faster than normal. I was thinking Tunitas might be pretty fast after all! But without favorable tail winds we hit the base of the hill pretty late, and Kevin started lagging behind again. This is where I constantly make a tactical error when climbing with Kevin. When he’s having trouble; when it appears I have him on the ropes and pulling away quickly, instead of taking advantage of it and just heading up the hill, I wait for him. Did this three times on Tunitas. And that third time? He just went flying on past me. On the top part, where it flattens out, he took more than 30 seconds off my best time. He was flying!

Up to that point, he wasn’t thinking it was much of a ride. That was then, this is now. He got about 10 Strava accomplishments plus some really really sore legs, so he’s thinking it was a pretty good ride after all.

And that gray? It finally disappeared once we started down Kings, heading for home.






Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *