The title? Had to find a way to reference the turning point in last Sunday’s epic Game of Thrones episode. When, after an exhausting and endless and looking-like-it’s-hopeless battle against the Night Walkers, they finally give us hope. And that’s what happened on this morning’s ride. I felt like I finally had hope, real hope, that I’m going to come back and ride strongly again.

Nothing really amazing or epic about the ride, but I was able to climb Kings at a strong pace and never gave up. There even seemed to be a slight, very slight, chance of breaking 30 minutes. Not today. But maybe sooner than I thought! I was looking over my past results; last time I climbed about this fast was November 18, 5 months ago. Things should start to get faster from here-on. Now, if only the weather up on top would dry out. Not much incentive to clean my bike when each ride on Skyline makes a mess of it.

At the end, we finished at 9:26, just 4 minutes off the used-to-be-normal finish time of 9:22. Might be able to get there, especially if not having to fight all the headwinds we had today.