lactate threshold? found it.

met tc (another capybara, did i mention?) at his place in palo alto wednesday afternoon for a hillfest followup to monday's big fun. of course we lit straight out for page mill road, probably the only tdf category 1 climb around here. (sierra is plenty steep but not long enough, and mt. hamilton is plenty long but has those two half-mile descents in the middle. they'd probably both be rated as category 2.) oh, oh, oh, my legs were screaming. i couldn't keep up with tc, and really didn't want to try. he never left me for dead or anything, but was always two turns ahead. at the water fountain in the driveway just before the open space preserves, we tanked up and reassessed. the road above has recently been resurfaced, topped with loose gravel, so we decided not to try that steepest pitch up to the preserves and just head back down.

a word about that water fountain. it stands at the end of a driveway, like, at somebody's house. there's a fountain basin where you can get a drink, and a tap on the side for filling bottles. it's kept clean, too, with no leaf trash or anything. there is no other water source for miles around up on that ridge. i don't know who installed it or maintains it, but it is one of the nicest, most generous gestures. i know i speak for a whole lot of bay area cyclists when i thank the people responsible. they should put a donation box there, because there have been times climbing that hill when a water refill is priceless.

page mill's a sweet descent since the repaving last year, steep and technical, really no place to let it fly, but lots of practice countersteering through smooth downhill corners where bikes are way faster than cars. we took the altamont option, then turned right on moody to go back up. moody road is diagnosable: multiple personality disorder. two miles of jekyll and a half-mile of hyde. dr. jekyll takes you through the approach nicely enough, undulating up the box canyon averaging less than a 4% grade. mr. hyde shows up at the hairpin-right 10 mph sign at the top of the canyon, where the road grabs the canyon wall to get up to the page mill ridge. over 330' vertical in less than a half-mile: 13%. ouch.

tc left me behind with my burning quads and hams. he waited at the stop sign at page mill, time for another reassessment. do it again? sure, why not? down page mill and altamont, then once more right on moody. surprisingly, this time it felt better. the body's amazing. even when you think it's done all it can, it keeps going.

it was time to get out of the hills for a while, so we took page mill and arastradero down to lactate threshold boulevard, otherwise known as foothill expressway. we've spent a lot of time on that road, with its wide smooth clean shoulder, perfect for hammerheads. we acted the part. tom took a long uphill pull at 25 mph, then we stopped into shoup park in los altos to refill. south from there, foothill's got a nice long slight downhill. i took my long pull first at 30 mph, then cranked it up to 35. there's a lot of air to push out of the way at those speeds. whoosh.

we pulled into the voss avenue parking lot for a break, still a little early to meet the team in training crowd for hill repeats. tc couldn't stay, so he headed back to palo alto. i hooked up with the team for a few repeats on mt. eden, then hammered back to the parking lot. for the day it was 65 miles, probably 5000' vertical, and lots of lactate burn. after monday, that hurt.