Mountain training

[Walsh95]

Hello all,

I'm 14 and have been into serious cycling for about half a year.
I can maintain good pace on the flats (40-45 kph) for a decent time period, maybe a half hour before I start to hurt, and my acceleration up the hills is good (maintain 25-30kph up some seriously steep short, sharp ones around home), but have no real mountains close enough for me to train regularly, and so far as I can tell, going up the short hills only seems to build strength and bulk rather than endurance, so what can I do?

[foo on patrol]

If you have no "mountains" so to speak, do some longer intervals and ride harder on the climbs you have around you. Also ride them in a slightly higher gear than you would normally. Do standing or close to standing starts at the bottom of these climbs and drive it hard to the top. Just don't do it every day but as you have only been at it for six months, don't be expecting miracles yet, you have a long way to go and race as often as you can, because this is your best training. Enjoy the ride.

Foo

[Walsh95]

Will do,
Cheers mate

[Walsh95]

Really hammered it this morning
Pity the traffic lights crucified my average speed.

Got home and threw up

Still felt great

[Puffy]

Don't over do it!
Overtraining is easily done without rest periods. You also risk loosing motivation if you push too hard all the time.

As to building endurance; Repeats. Ride to the top of the biggest/steepest hill you have then ride to the bottom (decending is a skill you need to learn too), turn around and do it again, and again and again and again etc. Even better if you want endurance is to do a long steady moderate paced ride first, then do the repeats.

HTH

[foo on patrol]

Really hammered it this morning
Pity the traffic lights crucified my average speed.

Got home and threw up

Still felt great

Well, that shows you have some commitment then. Just don't and I repeat don't do that everyday.

Just concentrate on getting the Klms into your legs and worry about the speed side of things a little later. Speed is of no use to you, if you're not there at the end.

Foo