Lonnie Utah said:
I don't know about you guys, but I find hills more usefull for this stuff as you can't "cheat" as easily...
L
Me too, plus I love climbing anyway
. To answer the OP there is no difference doing intervals on a hill instead of a flat if you have the same intensity. I would recommend vo2max intervals of 15-30 seconds (the hardest type of intervals IMO) up a hill because you know if your slacking when you get to the top. Roll down the bottom of the hill again have a minutes rest and repeat for 5-10 reps.
On longer intervals such as kilometer ON kilometer OFF where the intervals are over a minute to complete I recommend flat ground, do this interval (1 kilo all out 1 kilo recovery) for upto 20-60km's (10-30 hard kilometers) by the time you get to the end you start swaying around the road at 18km/h so you get more rest between intervals lol!!!
I also recommend that you already have an established base before you do these intervals as endurance will be the determining factor as to how well you can complete these drills. The pro's all do it that way and they manage to beat the hacks who go intense all year round.
Here is my month to month, month, month plan (very rough)
base & weights (gain fat and muscle), base (drop to race weight),SE & base, SE and TT's (start racing), TT's and intervals and race, INTENSITY (all hard exercises) incorporate more sprints and race, RACE more sprints less km's, RACE, RACE, little break before preparing totally on that BIG race you want to win, then finally we come to month 12 give yourself a little break (1-3 weeks) do a bit of X-training and put some weight on that now skinny frame (dont worry it will come off in the base period
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You ask if you are missing out on anything? Here is my advice do everything between 5 second sprint intervals and 35 km TT's in little gears (spinning),big gears (mashing) and normal cadence this way you should have speed and strength on race day.