Today I experienced this quote when I was doing my leg opener ride for tomorrow's race. I usually use Southgate Avenue as my leg opener segment. Two years ago I got my first Strava KOM on there, with a time of 5:19. So you could say it has some value to me.
I kept the KOM time until January 27 of this year, where I improved it by 11 seconds, with a time of 5:08. My goal was to get a sub-5-minute climb. But in March, during my leg opener for the UC Berkeley Race weekend, I was riding with Eric and attacked and practically time trialed/sprinted the flat section. Surprisingly, I found I had yet again improved my time by another 11 seconds, getting 4:57.
Then my first KOM ever gets taken away from me about a week later. The new KOM time was 4:45, something I wasn't too sure I could beat. So yesterday, knowing I would open my legs up on Southgate Avenue for Wente Vineyards, I compared my speed on certain sections of the 1-mile climb. In order to PR yet again, I'd have to climb fast on the graded part, and sprint fast on the flatter part.
So that's exactly what I did today, I cruised up the hill at tempo--close but not quite at LTHR, and then attacked where I attacked Eric, and then sprinted the flat section.
I felt like crap after, and was disappointed in myself because I couldn't spin as fast as I wanted to on the flat section. It was already painful to breath which is why I couldn't push myself anymore. Plus I'm about 4-weeks detrained.
So I continued riding easy until I got home, worried that my performance on Southgate would indicate poor performance at tomorrow's road race.
I got home and uploaded the Strava file, see the icon of the trophy with a (x1) next to it, scroll down and notice the KOM crown! I look further right and see my new PR of 4:12--a 45 second improvement from last time, and a 1:07 improvement from the first time I ever went hard up the climb.
Which is why they say that it never gets easier, we only get faster :)
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