Road to Wildflower Pt. 6
Forgive me if I whimper a little bit durring this entry. I started the week off wrong. Remember that hill I climbed last week. The one with the 12.9% grade that I was going to go make a loop out of this week. Well I got a little carried away. Up, up, and away. Up, up, up and away. Let’s just say I was mistaken about a few things. First, I couldn’t take Moody over to Page Mill, I was at Page Mill when I climbed Moody last week. Second, the grade on Moody doesn’t max out at 12.9%, it’s actually 16.3%.
Today I climbed Moody again. When I arrived at the stop sign where I turned back last Wednesday another cyclist got chatty with me and informed me that I didn’t have 3 miles to go to get to Page Mill, I was on Page Mill. This was not a good thing to learn, precisely because it was very good news. I had already reached my goal for the day, right? And having done that, the only thing to do was to create a new one, right? Oh how naive, how very very naive. Since I thought Page Mill was 3 miles away I reasoned it only made sense to ride up Page Mill for some ways. Maybe not 3 miles but some ways. 5 miles later I reached Skyline Blvd.
If you live in this area and you cycle, you know Page Mill. Doesn’t matter if your a mountain biker or a road biker. If you Mountain Bike, you’ve been up to get to one of the routes off Skyline and you’ve been thankful that nothing you are about to ride is that long and steep. If you are a road biker, Page Mill is either that hill that someday you’ll be in good enough shape to try and ascend, that hill that kicked your ass, or the thing you do that seperates you from mere mortals.
Today I joined the ranks of the last. OK truth be told, for me Page Mill is that hill that kicked my ass all the way to the top and will probably continue kicking it for a few days days to come. I feel a certain amount of pride in being able say, “I ‘ve climbed Page Mill.” But also realize that for many more advanced cyclists Page Mill is the warm up to a real ride. None the less, I’m going to say it again, “I climbed Page Mill Today!”
This of course was a mistake. I’m training for a triathlon not for a climbing race. Wildflower has hills but nothing on par with this, while ascending Moody and then putting on another 10-15 miles of mild terrain would probably be productive doing an outright 26 mile climb and descent is going to cost me. My knees are weak and achey, my balance is off and my leg muscles are very very tight. In short I feel like I just finished a race. That kind of exhertion is counter productive during training as it will interfere with my strength, motivation, and coordination for the next day or two. Those to days are my weaker sports and they deserve higher quality work outs, not lower.
Again though, I climbed Page Mill!
El Camino -> Moody -> Page Mill 13 Miles 1 hour 33 Minutes. Back down about 45 Minutes.