16:06 - New Personal Best Up Old La Honda Road

Old La Honda Road [1] is a local benchmark climb. The local roadies use it to challenge themselves and heckle each other. Well, today, recovering from a back injury, I made it up in 16 minutes and 6 seconds. This beats my previous PR of 16:14, and brings me ever closer to sub-16 minute territory.

The dieting and training are starting to pay off. This morning, I was 174.4 lbs (79.1 kg). Bike weight was 14 lbs, 1 oz (6.37 kg). My average wattage was 419 W, yielding 5.3 W/kg. Impressive, but not enough to beat one Eric Lau, a Stanford senior who made it up in 15:27. An honorable mention goes to Elliot Hawkes (16:03) and Keith Wong (16:08).

Of course, I have a ways to go before I can beat Eric Heiden's 14:10 record:

One step at a time. I'm just glad that I don't weigh over 200 lbs anymore.

[1] http://graphics.stanford.edu/~lucasp/grade/oldlahonda.html

California is Beautiful

I was in California from Aug 3 to Aug 12, a week and a half not too long ago. In that time, I learned how Model N (my new employer) functions, found a new apartment, visited Dave Miller, beat Super Mario Bros. 3, saw a real live airship, found a delicious farmer's market and, courtesy of my hard case, rode my bicycle plenty.

Except for one morning of rain, the weather was perfect. 82F (28C), clear, and dry during the day, 55F (13C) and slightly humid to foggy overnight. Compared to Boston's two choices - hot and humid or raining - I'm wondering why I bothered to come back at all. Oh, right. Thesis.

The cycling around the Silicon Valley is just amazing. To the east, there are little paths that go along the water. North and south is all flat. To the west, there are mountains - real mountains! I really enjoyed doing legitimate, tough climbs that took an hour.

I set a personal best on the local Old La Honda Road climb, of 18m48s. I should immediately discredit this and say that I wasn't really trying. As it's hard to watch what I eat when traveling, I was about 5 lbs overweight. I was riding my Fuji Aloha CF2 with Zipp 808 clinchers, a tool bag, and two full water bottles (heavy!). I was also carrying Dave's wallet, phone, arm warmers, and bottle. So, if I can break 19 minutes in Sherpa mode, maybe I can break 17m or even 16m once everything is properly dialed in?

I did manage to pass Dave up the climb. (Sorry Dave! This is one of the best photos I have of the trip!)