StephenH

In a past life, I hiked a lot in the Colorado mountains.

What I noticed then, as compared to bicycling now, is that I got huge calves from hiking up hills. I had bald spots on my shins where the hair got rubbed off by tight jeans legs. Effect on the thighs was similar. Bicycling, I've got strong legs, but not the big calves.

I would hike up Horsetooth Rock as fast as I could, or Greyrock Mountain. I think I made Horsetooth in about 39 minute from the parking lot, and seems like Greyrock in about 58 minutes, and that was traveling light, in sneakers (in summertime) and breathing as heavily as I could the whole way up...but not actually trying to jog. In the offseason, I'd go up anyway, went up at night, too (particularly Horsetooth). After a while, you know every rock and shadow on the trail. I knew exactly how much water to carry, too.

Anyway, go find a good steep hill and hike up it every day. Change is good, rough rocks or trail are better than a uniform road slope. And one of the few times I tried running back down a trail, I sprained an ankle- so beware of that. Try to do this at a similar elevation to the test mountain, too (don't train at 1,000' if the test is at 9,000').

One other thing I'll mention: As I went along on my mountaineering, I got more interested in this stuff, and started reading up on ice axes, self-arrest, and rock climbing. All of those require good upper body strength, totally unlike cycling, so I was ill-suited for them. And being any overweight at all works against you big time, too. So lose all the weight you can, work on arm, chest, grip strength. You may not need it for the fitness test, but will at some point down the way.