For those of you who are wondering, it is MUCH harder to bicycle up a hill than it is to bicycle on level ground or downhill (I know, shocking). My cycling experience has given me a lot of insight into why my car makes “that” noise, like it is straining, when I am driving up a steep hill. As a result of my training, to be completely honest, I have come to empathize with my car when it starts making that sound. I’ve gone as far as telling my car that we were almost at the top of the hill, that it was doing a great job and it would NOT have to do a hill repeat.
There is one last thing you should know: Hill repeats hurt. They hurt a lot. I will spare you the boring reasons and details about gearing, torque, etc., and leave it at going up hills sucks and bicycling up the same hill multiple times sucks even more.
I have tried multiple strategies for making hill repeats more bearable. I’ve tried channeling my anger, using my hatred of “the hill” as my motivator. Aside from the fact that tricking myself into hating a hill is tough, my anger usually runs out during repeat number two, and then I am usually mentally spent for the remainder of the repeats. I’ve tried thinking about blog topics as I go up the hill, but that takes me to the topic of, “Ow, ow, ow…this hurts…ow, ow, ow…” every single time; to date, I have not gotten past that topic on a hill-repeat. I’ve tried playing a song in my head, but I am not able to focus on that song, and it quickly is drowned out by the painful screams in my mind cause by the hill repeat. So, until this past Sunday, I have been solution-less.
Then it happened, on the way down “Claire’s Climb” (a large hill – thus the name “Claire’s Climb” – that is on the triathlon route) the serendipitous moment that I had dreamed of, occurred.
While descending Claire’s Climb, I started singing out loud.
I started singing Britney Spears’ “Hit me baby one more time” (in reference to the fact that I was doing going to climb Claire’s Climb, you guessed it, one more time). I sang Britney’s bubble-gum-pop ditty in an angry, death-metal sort of tone. I doubt anyone wanted to hear me sing, but I was more than happy to serenade myself! As I turned around and made my way up the hill, I kept singing and, wouldn’t you know it, the hill was not nearly as miserable to climb as it was the last time.
By the time I hit the top of the hill I was over Britney, and wouldn’t you know it, what song popped into my head other than “That’s Amore.” So the cyclists next to me (or passing me by) on the next repeat were regaled with, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore…” There is no rhyme or reason to the songs that I sing, there is no single genre that works best for me, and I don’t have a “go-to” song. What I do know is that everyone else better put in ear plugs when they are next to me on the hills because I will be singing my way up those hills, one note at a time.
