How do I prepare for hills?

[tulip]

Hills involve more than just your legs and lungs. You've got to have a strong body--as in core/abs/trunk/whatever you want to call it. I've seen great improvements in my hill climbing since I started doing pilates regularly almost a year ago.

Oh, and if you have any bridges, those are hills, too.

[SadieKate]

I bet it's flatter here than there! OK, depends on where in Texas you live. The Panhandle is probably as flat. Do you have any hills close enough to drive to once a week? Do it.

Last year I started driving down to the Bay Area or up to the Sierras to ride long climbs with some of the others on this forum. There are lots of things that will help, but the best is to actually ride hills once a week. If you have to, find a bridge that you can ride repeats but you need also need a long gradual hill for training. You'll learn how to sit back, relax, spin and keep your heart rate down. If ride repeats on a bridge, be sure to practice sitting and spinning, not just standing and stomping over the top.

From riding the flats for years, one of the big things I learned was to change my expectation of speed. I expected to be rolling along at a pretty good clip all the time because I never climbed anything but a freeway bridge. When faced with 10-20 miles of unremitting UP, I learned to be happy riding very slowly for long periods and I learned how to manage gears to relieve muscle fatigue. Mentally learning how to ride slowly and in a level of constant stress gave me the patience to keep persevering while my legs and cardio got stronger.

I ride in headwinds a lot but it never really taught me the patience and pain tolerance needed for long hills. However, long rides straight in to a headwind for several miles will help and then you'll have the exquisite pleasure (hopefully) of a tailwind home.

Interval training and core strengthening are good compliments.

This may sound like heresy if you live where you can ride outside regularly, but the climbing programs from Spinervals (like the Uphill Grind) will provide an amazing boost to your climbing strength. If you can't actually ride any real hills, even doing the Uphill Grind once a week (no more than two) will be greatly beneficial.

[yellow]

My $0.02: hills (and riding in general) are at least 80% mental. I agree with all the other stuff here...but remember that your head can be your most valuable ally.

In the last place I lived, we had nothing but hills. The only flat stretch was Main Street downtown, which was about 0.75 mile long. And the pavement was awful (small, rural jursidiction). I only rode that part when I rode to work.

Riding up hills is hard work. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to ride up a hill? I had no choice (well I did: not to ride at all), so my mindset was "I'm going to go for a ride" not "I'm going to go ride a route that has hills! Eeeek!". I became a very strong hill climber because that's what I rode all the time. I have a triple and am not ashamed. I'm a believer in weight training and pushups to help build strength and muscle endurance.

Now....having said that...I must say that I have issues with the flats. And I know that most of these issues are in my head. You get no breaks on the flats (like you do when you are going downhill, the reward for the uphill)! They lack in variation (I was used to shifting often...you don't do that on the flats)! Headwinds and crosswinds! Riding the flats hurts my butt! But I know that in order to go faster on the flats, I have to wrap my head around all of those things that I dread about them. Someday I'll be faster. I just have to train my head.

Where I live now we have a mixture of flats, rollers, and what I call hard (but not extreme) climbs. Frankly, I miss my old riding territory. When given a choice here, I have so far selected routes with more hills. In this new place, though, I'm going to have to find something else to focus on since my 2500-feet-on-every-ride situation no longer exists.

So don't give the hills your mental energy...put that energy to better use. Just think of it as a ride!

[AuntieK]

Gotta agree with Yellow on this one...DO NOT let hills freak you out!!

When I first started riding I was totally fine on the hills (didn't know better ). Then I started freaking whenever I saw a hill coming, and thus started hating hills.

I have recently learned that hills aren't as bad as I have built them up to be in my head. Actually, now that I know I can handle them, they're kind of fun in a challenging kind of way.

So go do the hills... you can do it!

[TexasKate]

Thanks so much for the advice and encouragement, ladies. We do have some overpasses here that I can do daily, and on weekends I can go out to where the slower, more gradual hills are. There aren't any real steep grades down here (bottom tip of Texas), but it does get VERY windy. I rested yesterday after my first 25 mile ride Saturday (I know I keep mentioning this, but I'm really quite proud of myself) and went out to ride 16 miles today, and took on the overpass that's about 8 miles into the ride. I took your advice and looked up only enough to make sure nothing was in my way, then just concentrated on getting to the top. It wasn't bad...AND the first 8 miles of the ride was into a really stiff headwind. Whew!

Thanks again!