Having a day off, went out this morning for a ride between school runs and other chores, aiming for something between 20-25 miles. Started out on a familiar 20 mile route and, after a heavy weekend, I felt better than I'd anticipated. Anyway, about 6 miles in I decided on a whim to turn right rather than left and tackle a nasty looking steep hill that I'd seen previously. Anyway, I made it up the hill that kicked on a bit further than I thought and, despite finding it extremely tough, felt good at the top looking down in the valley below. Then to my surprise it went down the other side in a very steep descent. Rather than turn back and resume my planned route I went down, to then have to start going back up again. After a second ascent I turned a corner and up it went again. Not knowing the road at all (only vaguely where it ended up) I chickened out and turned back. I felt a little bad but the rest of the challenge would be there for another day. Anyhow, of course now I had to go up the steep descent so it wasn't necessarily an easy way out and that climb had me really struggling but I made it. I felt really bad at the top of that one and actually thought I was going to be sick.
After a stop for some water I descended the rest of the hill a little disappointed that I'd decided to turn back. I resumed my normal route and tackled a couple of other tricky hills, but nowhere near the severity of the earlier ride. To my surprise I felt I'd recovered well and ended up doing 30 miles in all.
I suppose the reason for the ramble is that I consider myself fairly fit (I do a mix of running and cycling) but am clearly not up for proper, sustained climbing (I always have some hills on my rides but while some are steep, they are relatively short or else the long ones ascend more gradually). I felt really rough after doing 3 tough ascents and, while I recovered pretty quick, it made me really respect riders that can bounce up those hills on a regular basis. Guess like everything, you need to be fit for the hills and practice makes perfect and all that. Certainly gave me a bit more respect for building up properly to tackling rides like that. Anyhow, rather than the earlier disappointment, I'm feeling quite good now that I had a go and made it up the steep sections that I did and then went on to do a further 20+ miles afterwards no probs.
After a stop for some water I descended the rest of the hill a little disappointed that I'd decided to turn back. I resumed my normal route and tackled a couple of other tricky hills, but nowhere near the severity of the earlier ride. To my surprise I felt I'd recovered well and ended up doing 30 miles in all.
I suppose the reason for the ramble is that I consider myself fairly fit (I do a mix of running and cycling) but am clearly not up for proper, sustained climbing (I always have some hills on my rides but while some are steep, they are relatively short or else the long ones ascend more gradually). I felt really rough after doing 3 tough ascents and, while I recovered pretty quick, it made me really respect riders that can bounce up those hills on a regular basis. Guess like everything, you need to be fit for the hills and practice makes perfect and all that. Certainly gave me a bit more respect for building up properly to tackling rides like that. Anyhow, rather than the earlier disappointment, I'm feeling quite good now that I had a go and made it up the steep sections that I did and then went on to do a further 20+ miles afterwards no probs.
