Quote Originally Posted by staceysue View Post
There are 3 hills on my ride, and I've got this game I've been playing by myself. I've never won it. Every time I go out riding I think "I'm gonna do it this time!"

I try my very, very hardest to not look up even once (like everybody keeps saying about only looking 10 feet ahead). I concentrate really hard on just looking at the wheel or a few feet in front of it and I can't do it. It's hilarious. It's such a huge struggle - one part of me saying "don't do it, don't do it, don't do it" and the other part saying "I HAVE to!" then my eyes are just jerked to the top of the hill.

Last time I got up 2 of the 3 without looking - so I'm getting closer.
We climbed an awful hill last weekend. The last time we were out there, I walked up the last 1/4 mile of it. I had made the mistake of looking up and saw the grade getting much worse.

This time, I refused to look up while climbing that blasted hill. I had the GRADE % displaying on my Garmin. The first mile is 5-6%. Then it goes up to 8-9% for about a mile. Then it rises sharply to 11% and the last 1/4 mile is 14%. Finally, when I dropped below 3 mph, my Garmin put me out of my misery and went on Auto-Pause and stopped telling me how steep the grade was. My body was telling me that I was doing something I had never done before... but I really believe that not looking up saved me.

No, I was not smiling while climbing. I was yelling at the top of my lungs "This Hurts!!!" DH was in front of me dancing on the pedals. I hate when that happens.