Thursday Week 4 Climbing Repeats

Today I did 4 climbing repeats of the wall (Levering/Lyceum streets) in Manayunk. The wall is about 1 mile long or so at a 17% grade I think, made somewhat famous by the US Pro championship bike race. I find it to be very difficult. There's roughly 3 parts to it: a not so steep part, then a part where it starts to get steep, then a turn where it just gets crazy steep and goes on like that for a bit too long. By the time I get to the really steep part I can't just sprint over it and anyway it's too long for a sprint. So there's a decent stretch at the end where I'm just suffering at about 103% of my training heart rate. At the really steep part, I usually stand, and this is one of the few hills that I can really feel it in my arms, back, and lower abs. (I wonder if my technique is off?) It's a total body hill. By climbing repeat #4 I was pretty much cryin for mamma. All this is done on my mountain bike.

Why on the mountain bike? Because it's 5 am and it's dark out and I'm less likely to get flats on the mountain bike if I can't see something and run over it. This morning I passed a guy all kitted out on the bike path with what looked like a Trek carbon. He had two flats! I offered him a patch kit but he said he never used one! Who goes out on a road bike, in the dark, without knowing how to use a patch kit?

Time: 1:43 WTD 1:43 MTD 30:20 YTD 243:55
Distance 23.76 WTD 23.76 MTD 470.19 YTD 3573
Avg 13.7

Soreness - later in the day I had soreness at about 4 or 5 on a scale of 10. I don't think it was from the hill repeats though, because the soreness was in the front of my hips and my inner thighs, which makes me think it was from the romanian dead lifts I did in the gym yesterday.