Hill Repeats

So last night we had our first "On Bike Skills & Hills Workout". It was sponsored by Integrated Performance - which I think is like a gym for athletes. It was awesome having a personal trainer help with technique going up and down the hill.

I posted earlier what my definition of a hill is. This one was no different. It happened to be about 0.8 of a mile long all of which was at what my coach would call an incline. There were a couple of parts that were inclined a bit more than others! Very little was actually gradual, most was pretty steep. I am proud to say that I made it up that hill every time! Going down, I didn't fall - which if you saw the turns and the speed...well I was happy to stay ON my bike the whole way down. I narrowly avoided eating bugs which met an untimely end on my face - so I am learning to keep my mouth closed on the decent! We worked on banking our bikes on the turns going down and pulling up on our pedals going up.

One of the problems that I have is my bike. Being a hybrid (a mix of street bike and mountain bike) I am upright and my gears don't work like the street bikes that the rest of the team has. I am having to figure out how to use my gears to the best of my advantage going up. How hard do I need to push vs. how fast I should pedal. What should my cadence be? These are all things that I am working on learning and I think will get easier with practice. All I know is that I am very happy that I made it up and down that hill 7 times last night! YAY!! I don't think I could have done it even once a few weeks ago.