DST: ~34 mi (same)
AVS: 13.7 (+0.2!)
MXS: ~31 mph (-1)
Ride time: 2:29 (same)
Total time: 2:50 (+5 from last week)

I did a similar route this week to last, but in reverse and without the neighborhood options, and using Mountain Home instead of Whiskey Hill (it’s shadier and hilly in a less stupid way). The training calendar said 38 this week, but I’m going to be riding more tomorrow than it says (17 instead of 11 miles) so I didn’t add any distance to this ride. I also didn’t ride yesterday, which I think was a good decision, because I felt better today even though my legs were (ugh) still sore.

However, it seems to be true that the best thing for sore muscles is more of what made them sore. This was an encouraging ride because it’s the first sign I’ve really had that training isn’t just exhausting me but is actually working. Despite not having fresh legs (tired out from both overall riding and from the climbing on Alameda), and despite the heat, I was able to climb Edgewood a bit better than I did some weeks ago when I went with friends. (It was much hotter this morning than last week, and was sunny for the whole ride.) My climbing is still crap, but I think I actually rested one fewer time than I have previously on the way up, and I didn’t stop at the top or on the other side (at Cañada) but kept going. At one point I was feeling awful and I did look at my bracelet for the inspiration to keep going. It was nice to have that.

My hands and feet didn’t show any notable issues until closer to 30 miles this time, and my ankle was fine with the shoe straps closed tighter, though I did get a mild pain in my left knee around 30 miles (it’s gone now) and my right calf felt tense. I figured out the calf thing after a while — it’s something I do when I’m coasting where I don’t relax it fully, so that’s a good thing to work on. I got a second wind around 20 miles or so, which was a blessing, and I was able to push decently on some of the hills later on, even climbing Arastradero (which is easier going this direction in both cases).

In general I don’t know whether it makes much difference in the difficulty of the ride to reverse it. The Edgewood climb is hard (my mental joke is it comes in four sections: hard, sorta flat, awful, and plain evil), but so is the Arastradero climb. The rest of the ride is mostly rolling hills, and I don’t think the direction makes much difference, though Portola seems harder and Arastradero is definitely more fun — that’s where I hit my max speed, and I’m not sure if the speed limit inside the preserve is 25 or 35, but if it’s 25 I was actually going fast enough I could have been ticketed, which would be hilarious in a horrible way if it happened.

I feel pretty dead on my feet after this ride, but the fact that I made it through pretty well despite starting out tired is encouraging. On the other hand, the route for W2W is now posted and it is 8000 feet of climbing the first day and 5000 the second. That’s just insanity. Insanity, I say. I haven’t even contemplated Old La Honda or Page Mill yet (I’m still aiming for climbing Edgewood without stopping, for goodness’ sake), but given the final route, I’d say they pretty much have to be in my future. Yikes.