Here my wife and dog join me for a hike up Johnson’s Mound.

The last day of August here in Illinois is brilliantly hot. Which meant long, slow training miles on country roads was likely to be neither fun nor productive.

I chose instead to head to the local hill training sight known as Johnson’s Mound Forest Preserve, a glacial kame covered with thick woods. Kames are basically piles of gravel dumped on the landscape by glaciers 10,000 years ago. The entire topography of Kane County where I live and ride and run was defined by the same large glacier that extended out from Lake Michigan all the way to the northwestern part of the state.

There is a black asphalt road that curls around the north side of the hill at Johnson’s Mound and then turns abruptly and takes a serpentine run up the hill. Total elevation is about 150 feet, so it’s not a monster. The steepest grade is just over 12% with most of the 1/3 mile climb from 4-6%. Not killer climbing some might say. But in Illinois we make do.

As a runner I’ve been using the hill for training since freshman year in cross country, when the specter of running at Johnson’s Mound was something we dreaded for weeks. It hurt, plain and simple. Our skinny little high school legs were not much match for the ancient gravel incline.

But by the time I graduated from college and was looking for ways to intensify training and improve hill running skills, Johnson’s Mound became the site for a weekly visit. A group of us would sometimes do hill training together, using a loop from the start of the woods up to the top in just over a half mile. The whole circuit around is .7 miles.

Through years of training I got better and faster at climbing that hill. At the peak of my post-collegiate competitive career, I ran one set of 5 repeats up and over the hill averaging 3:01 for the set. To break 3:00 meant you were in darned good shape. Every runner I knew, some with PRs below 31:00 for 10k, did that loop and agreed that it was tough to break the 3:00 mark.

I ran 31:10 the next week, taking second in a competitive 10k, then won a hilly hometown 10K in 31:52, that was measured 216 meters long by the high school track coach.

Those are fun recollections as a runner. Recently I ran a few hills at Johnson’s and can tell you that I’m not quite as fast these days. Not at all. Still, there was a respectable repeat or two thrown in there.

So to cycle the same hill and do the same loop on a bike is quite interesting. All four repeats today were completed in 2:25-2:27. I tried various strategies, riding harder on the lowland flats, charging the first hill, holding back until the last killer 12% grade and every way I tried to improve the time produced the same result.

Hmmm, I thought. Must be I’m only so good at hill climbing right now. I stood up out of the saddle some attempts, and rode seated as well. Same times.

What that really means is that more hill climbing value is in order. I simply have not built up the muscle base to allow faster climbing. I could probably jump off the bike and run it up the hill just as fast. In fact I’m thinking my climbing skills on the bike about matched my climbing pace as a runner. The times were not that far apart. I go 22mph on the flats own below and couldn’t do that on foot. So that’s the time differential right there.

In any case, having a hill like Johnson’s Mound to test your training and your spirit is an important resource. Find a hill of choice and put your watch on yourself. It will make you think about how to improve. Almost guaranteed.