Originally Posted by
mcjimbosandwich
Given your running background, you may want to consider pacing yourself up the hills as running has most likely given you the aerobic engine necessary to handle climbs. Done correctly, you probably won't be going much faster than if you were running up a hill if the hill is steep enough. A lot of adaptation will come from simply spending time riding as the muscles need to adapt to the cycling specific motions.
True, I'm pretty sure if I ran up that same hill, wouldn't be any quicker. I've driven that road a bunch of times, didn't realize how steep it was until i actually rode up the hill yesterday. Later this month I plan on either using the same climb or try other roads into Watchung to get my legs used to the hills.
Oddly enough once I got past that point, other hills within Martinsville and Bridgewater felt ok.