This was not an easy morning ride, by any stretch of the imagination. Sunday’s ride up Mt. Hamilton could still be felt in my legs, and my breathing was as bad as I can remember in ages. Actually, despite Sunday’s ride, my legs still had some power, but power doesn’t matter if you can’t back it up with oxygen to keep the engine going. And this morning the oxygen just wasn’t there. So I got to watch Kevin and Colin climb away from me, more than once, while I tried to stabilize and then slowly claw my way back up to them. It’s funny that I didn’t remember finishing Kings right with them; I had to look at the video I took to see that’s how it played out. It was my recollection that I was way off the back, but pictures don’t lie.

Pretty sure there’s a connection between taking Benadryl the night before, and the lungs working even worse than what passes for normal for me. After an hour or so, things start to feel normal again.