One of the best ways to get and stay strong is climbing uphill!
For the last few years, I’ve been tracking my workouts. I use a Garmin fenix 3 for my runs, my rides, and my swims. Incidentally, I use it as my step tracker as well. I upload the workout data to Garmin Connect app which pushes it to my Strava account as well as my Training Peaks account. I have 3 ways to look at all my data.
Am I a data geek? Possibly. I do know one thing, however, the one piece of information I consistently observe is my elevation. Not the actual footage above sea level, but the total amount of elevation climbed. Why? Because I know that the difficulty of my workouts, almost always correlate with the amount of elevation I climb. My maintenance run is about 1200ft total elevation. There’s the famed Temescal run that a group of us do most weekends here in Los Angeles that is about 750ft of total climbing. Then loads of others and the longer we go, the more we climb.
This year I set a goal to climb 500,000ft of combined running and cycling elevation. I’m currently at 309,206. I have 2 more months to make my goal. I will confidently say, I’m not going to reach my goal this year. I’m more than okay with that because by setting that goal, I’ve done more climbing than ever before, as far as running and biking. Setting the elevation goal, as opposed to a distance goal, has changed my game completely and forever.
I love the trails. I love trail running and I love mountain biking. The more I can do it the better I feel. I have a wife, 2 businesses and starting a 3rd, so I also have limited time for exercise, but I love being in nature. The fastest way to get an incredible workout and some energy from this beautiful earth, is to get to the hills!
If you’re reading this and you don’t have hills in your neighborhood, you can go to the gym or get some wooden plyo boxes or crates. Create your own elevation. You can do jumps with both feet or up and down with one foot. The action of exploding and using your quadriceps, calves and glutes will make your legs incredibly strong. It may not give you the fresh air that trail running or mountain biking does, but at least you’ll get the workout.
I’ve been using hills to train myself for years and I continually get stronger and faster. I always say that hills never get easy. They get easier, but they never get easy. If you want to get strong and stay strong, make the hills your gym. Even a power hike is amazing if you’re not a runner or a mountain biker. Breathing the fresh air of nature will help soothe your body and soul. See you out there! @teddymcdonald