Had to bail @ crest of Burkes Garden Mountain. Hate to not finish to completion something I start that is do-able. Hated to give up on a planned organized ride. And get all that way and then miss a burger @ Matties, the highlight of the ride. But I don't think my feet, quads, rear end, lower back, hands, or neck would have been able to scale the other side again. Especially after forgetting my Power Block Chews. Maybe with a refueling stop, but probably not worth the risk. And if it was a no-go, to then have to walk back up & out of the Bowl would have needlessly ground up my shoe cleats & led to me finishing up so much later. Got a late start, despite having gotten some sleep, awakened easily & excitedly @ 6:30 AM, having had everything set up, laid out & ready the night before, etc. I guess overall being so tired from our 18 hr workdays consecutively, poor timing planning on how long it would take me in the AM, & unclear thinking d/t personal family stress over the events in Kabul, combined w/ severe fog when leaving Princeton, caused me to arrive in Narrows @ 7:50AM & have to park all the way in the back, walk across the field to pay, etc, so by the time I got to start pedaling it was 8:25AM, hit RG by 9:50AM, Gratton by 11:20AM or so, had good times till then @ 14mph avg for both legs, then a slow climb w/ I think 4 stops that confirmed to me to reach the summit & turn around & go back down from whence I came. Still almost struggled on the 2 downhill return legs, w/ such horribly slow times for those legs, I deleted them. Wish I could delete MY legs yesterday, but I probably shouldn't say that. So, abysmal effort overall, although I still in 1 day got twice again the mileage that I had mustered in 3 weeks since getting back to riding after a 3.5 month hiatus. Holly did praise me for being sensible, before an equally grueling shopping excursion in Blacksburg. AND, it was still better than a day in the clinic, for sure!