Mt Cootha Repeats

Friday morning I had planned on doing a group ride, only a short one of around 50km but it got cancelled so I had a back up planned. Now in hindsight I'm glad, because it was a great day.

For those of you not from Australia Mt Cootha is a popular hill climb for cyclists of all degrees of experience. It is 2.29km with an average gradient of 9.5%, so a little tough for some! I had in the past only done it probably 3 to 4 times, with a personal best of 9.58mins for it.

On Friday I decided to get a block of repeats done of Mt Cootha. I started out easyish, first rep was 11mins, but still solid enough to be within 1min of it. That’s an average of around 12.5kms an hour up the hill. There were a few other riders heading up, but I didn’t see any of them on the way back down.

I didn’t have a lot of time, had to pop into work at around 8.30 so needed to keep a consistent pace. It pretty much took on average 11.30 to get up and 2.30 to get down! So that was the rest portion, 11.30on, 2.30 off.

In the end I only got 4 done. I think I could have done around 8 or 10. My last one was 11.42 so wasn’t really dropping off that much and was still feeling fairly fresh. When I say fairly fresh, my legs were burning each ascent, but I could have kept it up.
Forgot how much I love hills, they are in my opinion and incredibly essential part of training if you want to be a strong rider. The great thing is you don’t need to plot out a 180km course, all I need is 2.29kms of road and 3 or so hours of repeats and I am set.

Tomorrow morning (Monday) I have another hill climbing session. Mt Gravatt Lookout, 4:30am start at the base. Going to see how many reps I can do before I get too tired or decided to call it a day. I believe its around the same distance, 2km and the gradient is a lot easier around 5 - 6% I will take pics so everyone can see :D