Good luck with your progress. Pretty soon people will be hollering at you to pull your pants up.

Youth and climbing prowess is over-rated: Yesterday on a 20 strong group ride around the local mountains, a pack of 5 speedsters, none of them over 25 y.o., flew up the last climb of the day. I held on for the first 3 miles of moderate grade as they flew along at 20 mph. Knowing what was ahead - a 2 mile section of much steeper gradient - I fell back with a more appropriate age-to-speed group and finished a minute behind the speedsters. We all waited a good while until the entire group was back together before descending. I crushed the descent and finished the ride well ahead of the speedsters. One of them later confessed that he felt sick after that blistering climb, and had nothing left for the rest of the ride.