Follow Some of the Rules: A Tribute to Lucas Horan
It was confirmed a few days ago that my friend Lucas Horan drowned in the Bay late last month. I first met Lucas in May 2017, when he made a Strava comment on a run of mine. That March, I set out to get back my course record (CR) on the descent from Vollmer Peak down the Claremont ridge to the gate on Stonewall Drive. 3.41 miles with a -7.9% grade, the last 0.68 miles of which are -18.7%. I'd been bombing down the Claremont ridge for 13 years at that point, and aside from the long-since-moved-away grad school friend who'd introduced me to ultra-marathoning, I'd never met anyone who actually thought you could run down the thing, let alone hell for leather on the edge of control. I was successful in my objective, getting the CRs for the full descent and the bottom half back. Many Strava segments are (to my taste) short and uninteresting. To find a 3.41 mile section that is a natural downhill line is a rare treat. For it to be named " The Real Harvey Quadbanger " is ...