Hills or Hills?

Posted October 22, 2011
Filed under: Training and Fitness |

I struggled with whether or not to do “the ride” this morning. While I’m interested in really getting back to riding, I know that my fitness is low right now. The route was very hilly, which I don’t really mind, and the pace was going to be a fast “tempo” pace, which I’m not comfortable with. I’m also torn between the thinking that riding alot and riding hard will make you stronger and the thinking that training should be quality over quantity. While I know every coach out there, including my old coach, will tell you quality over quantity and yet all of the fast people I know ride hard alot! I ended up not doing the ride because my leg was hurting and it was just enough of an extra excuse. In the spirit of the ride, I did hill sprints instead.

The workout is one that I’ve done plenty of times before 20-min warmup, then 2-sets of 6 15-20 set sprints up a steep hill with 2-min between sprints and 10-min between sets. This workout is pretty key for races here because so many of them end on steep hills. While it helps to build those muscle fibers, it helps more because it gets you used to gauging the sprint. I still struggle with estimating the affect of the wind in a sprint.

I tried this workout on a few hills looking for the “right” one. The first one I picked was into a headwind so I only did that one once. The second hill (top right) I used for the next 5 sprints. I wasn’t really happy with the runway of this hill. To get to the steep part of the hill I had to go up a mild incline which put me in an awkward gear. For the second set I moved down the road a little and finally found the right hill.

My legs were definitely feeling this workout and I found myself having to focus on keeping my heels down during the sprint to prevent cramping. It’s been so long since I’ve done sprint drills that I still feel like it was a success. I do this in a nearby neighborhood and it’s always funny when I’m sprinting passed kids and their parents on bikes. I’m sure I look ridiculous to them. Sometimes little kids will “try to go fast” like me too.