Tony wrote:
> I live in the desert. There is not a hill around for miles, let alone a
> mountain. How in the world should I train for a triathlon that is going to
> have an elevation gain of 862 feet over the span of a mile. I did the math
> and that is over a 17% grade. Am I totally screwed? What should I do?
> Also, any ideas on what I should do about the 4,000+ elevation difference
> between the two cities?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
Parking garages when not busy, stairs in tall buildings, step ups (if
tallest building is 1 floor), overpasses, tm as high as it will go (most
around here go to 15%), stepmill (like escalator) if you can find one
(also tried versaclimber and stairclimber but they didn't work as well
for me since there's no stride at all on them).
For strengthening, I like weighted lunges and maybe squats. If you need
to run down, be sure to strengthen quads and knees (leg lifts, squats).
Lunges involve strides that squats don't, so they're more like running.
If you can drive some place with hills to run them, that would be
helpful to give you the feeling of real hills and how to pace (slowly) -
and maybe consider run/walking might be faster than running -
considering you're at end of tri.
FWIW, I usually run hilly trails (10-30% grade on hills), but we had
some nasty ice (water on top of ice for a few days) that really made it
dangerous to run normal trails, so I tried desperately to find something
that would work indoors. For me, the 15% treadmill and weighted (hand
weights) lunges worked best for my weak points.
What elevations are you talking about? If the 4000 ft elevation change
is from 10,000 to 14,000 ft, you may have an extra challenge. If it's
from 0 to 4,000 ft, it shouldn't be an issue. I live at sea level and
the top of local mountain that we train on is about 3800 ft.
Dot
--
"So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste
away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
