Ever since doing the Over the Mountain bike course - where I learned to go easier down and work a bit harder up - I love hills. I truly love them. I'm so glad that I live in Chapel Hill.
The training plan I am following has hill repeats every week, another factor that has made me strong on hills. I have to confess that the Bandit's Challenge bike course felt easy to me. My avg HR during the bike leg was 151 bpm.
Last night, as I lay in bed still feeling sore and stiff and tired from Saturday's race, I wondered if I should even do hill repeats today. I actually made up my mind to just do an easy ride. This morning as I headed out on my bike, I felt okay, but still had every intention to just do an easy ride and skip the hills. But then after spinning for 10 minutes, I felt great, so headed for the hills!
Here was my workout today:
Did six repeats of Mt. Sinai. This is a 1.2 mile stretch of road that starts out with a short steep climb, then a medium climb, then ends with a long gradual climb. At the very end where it starts to flatten out near Friends school road, I accelerate back to race pace and pretend I'm in the final lap of one of those OCS time trial races. It doesn't look like that bad of a hill in the profile at right. But, believe me, it's hard work!
I was supposed to do 7 repeats. The 5th & 6th lap, I just didn't have much left, and my HR didn't get up high enough. I decided it was best to quit and not train in the grey zone. Actually, repeats 4,5, and 6 were probably grey zone. Need to work harder next time! I don't feel like a wimp for quitting early this time tho, as the Bandit's run course took a lot out of me - that definitely did NOT feel easy! I felt completely wiped out for two days.
I love flying down Mt. Sinai at full speed in a tight aero tuck, ala Tour de France breakaway style...
I get into this type of tuck when descending the steepest hills. Before tucking, I look behind me and make sure there are no cars. Then I move to the center of the lane, hogging it for myself, as I don't want a car passing me. Besides, I'm going almost 45 mph, which is the speed limit anyway. :-)
I saw this first on the Tour de France. Then I experimented with it on my Mt Sinai hill repeats. I'm not sure if it's actually faster than being in the aerobars. The reason I like it for the steeper hills, tho, is that I can have my hands on the brake levers, so if I need to slow down, I can. I feel more in control, and thus allow myself to get up to higher speeds without feeling the need to pump the brakes. My aerobottle straw gets in the way a little, but I just deal with it by letting it sit next to my neck. For normal descents, I just get as tightly into my aerobars as possible, focusing on a tight and narrow profile. "Knees to the top tube, tight tight tight". This is how I handled the descents during Bandit's.
