It’s really tough to figure out why Tuesday’s ride went so well. I hadn’t slept much the night before, lots of drama going around at the shop and home due to various health issues with various people (for the most part, not me). Vs Thursday when I did sleep pretty well the night before, and a lot of the immediate things that had needed to be dealt with earlier in the week were not settled.

Yet Tuesday I felt like I was in “cruise” mode climbing, vs Thursday when I just couldn’t get either heart rate or watts to cooperate. Both rides I was with ex-Pilot (older Kevin), as younger Kevin is going to be away from tougher climbs for a while, due to his continuing knee issues. Both rides had warm weather in common; no need for leg warmers, long-fingered and/or heated gloves, or base layers. But Thursday it felt like I just didn’t really show up for the ride.

Thankfully the #1 rule still applied… at the end of the ride, and later in the day, I was glad I got out there. No matter how bad it feels on the bike, it’s never felt like something I should have avoided. With possible exceptions for those rare rides where I injured myself.

It’s funny to think about making it up Kings and being relieve your time’s under 40 minutes; it wasn’t that long ago I would have felt the same for 30 minutes. It’s still my hope that, when I finally get my comprehensive lung testing done (which has been put off until mid-December, not by my choice), they’ll find something actionable, something that I can do something about and breathe better/ride faster.

Hard to believe it was just a couple months ago that Kevin and I were in France, on an impossibly-compressed 8 day time frame, and got in some fantastic rides, incredible climbs, and saw 6 stages of the Tour de France. It was like being on an island untouched by a storm surrounding int. So many things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t. If only the rest of the year could be like that!

First ride up to Skyline since… a week ago Tuesday? Solo again too. And slow. Really slow. Some of it I’ll blame on a lung thing I picked up about a week ago, very bronchitis-like, the sort of thing I used to get most summers and would last way too long, maybe six weeks. I hope not this time! No fever, no congestion, just can’t get my breath. Thought last night, maybe not head out in the morning? Maybe use a trainer? Nah. Did a sucky solo flat loop last Thursday that I thought was going to be 29-something miles and miscalculated… just 25. Sunday rode with Kevin and stayed out of the hills, again. So this morning, I really, really, really had to make it up to Skyline.

And yes it was slow. My fastest recorded time, back in the day, was 21:15 up Kings. It’s possible there might have been a couple faster times, but we didn’t have bike computers back then, just stopwatches mounted to our handlebar. At 41:56, I’m getting perilously-close to doubling that 21:15 time, although to be fair, today was up through the park, which adds about a minute to the climb. Whatever, it’s not going to be too much longer before my fastest times in the past are literally 50% of what I’m able to do now.

Hopefully Kevin’s knee will be happy on Sunday and we can head into the hills again!