Steady up the hill

I needed three hours and hills.

And that's a difficult combination to estimate. At least for me. I wasn't sure what I would average going up hills and not sure that I was all that strong at climbing just yet.

The weather has finally allowed me to get outside on my bike on a regular basis. Which means finding bike routes appropriate for different types of workouts.

On Friday night, I decided to ride with a friend out in Clarence on a nice 18-mile route that was basically flat and perfect for an hour-or-so endurance workout.

Only, the road we began on was torn up for construction. It was still rideable but difficult. Thankfully it was only a few hundred yards.

"It's like riding Paris-Roubaix!" my friend shouted back, referring to the one-day professional cycling race which is famous for it's tough cobblestone roads.

I decided I wasn't much of a cobblestone rider. But the rest of the ride was enjoyable.

Then on Sunday came the big three-hour ride. With hills. Hills not only will make me stronger but will help prepare me for Muskoka, where I've heard the bike course is full of short, steep hills.

I recruited my friend Jen who recruited our friend Greg to ride a 41-mile course from Chestnut Ridge Park to Springville and back. And those first 10 miles or so were hilly. We got right into hills and rollers and fast descents and then a climb that felt like I might as well have been at the end stage of the Pyrenees. (OK, it was the Pyrenees for me. For high level cyclists, it would have been a minor bump in the road.)

Greg reminded me early on to use my full pedal stroke. The ideal is to think of making a big circle with your foot and pedal, thinking up, over, down, across. I know I tend to point my toes when I pedal, so it's something I need to actually think about, especially when climbing. On the steepest climb of the day, I fell back into a 4-mile-per hour pace. And I remembered an email my coach once sent out to her athletes:

"What if I'm only going 4 miles an hour up hill? .... Then you go 4-miles an hour up hill."

And while I didn't motor up the hill, I felt pretty steady.

The second half was a bit flatter and faster but riding with friends helps you pick up the pace, especially when you're the slower one in the bunch. I finished the ride feeling tired but not trashed. And more importantly I had fun on a beautiful morning with two good friends.

The rest of this week will be relatively easy as I prepare for what I like to call crazy lady weekend: I will be in Geneva for two races, first doing the Mini-Musselman race, a sprint-distance course on Saturday. On Sunday is the annual half-Ironman distance race, the Musselman. As a training day, I will be doing the "Aquabike" race, or the swim and bike portion of the half-ironman race.

But then, it will be back to finding long, hilly rides to test myself, to improve my form and to help my confidence.