Reading that "tips for climbing" thread downpage, I got to thinking about what I did this past year.

I've been training continuously and somewhat seriously for the past 20 years. All of a sudden in the past couple weeks we can climb at 90 cadence in zone 5 on our tandem without feeling like our life's blood is pouring out through the soles of our shoes. I've been working toward that for a very long time and all of a sudden, I'm there. My problem is that I'm not sure what made the difference. Whatever, suddenly we're putting up Strava PRs and keeping up with people who could always ride away from us on the climbs.

From December 1 to about May 1 we rode in VT1 both weekend days, going from about 60 miles total to about 100. During the week, we usually warmed up on our rollers or trainer for an hour and then lifted heavy weights two days a week, plus did other stuff like the Stepmill or skied.

From about May 1 until the end of July, we went down to 1 weekend ride but that ride kept getting longer and harder until we did the 1-day STP and RAMROD. During the week we rode outside more and quit lifting about June 1 in favor of more riding.

We took a great lot of supplements to supposedly increase our aerobic ability and endurance, and maybe they did. However we quit them all July 30.

I lost weight in about a straight line drop from December 1 until RAMROD, but only about 8 lbs. total. Stoker only lost a little, but she became much more muscular. I also became more muscular.

BTW, we did virtually no formal interval training. We just did the VT1 thing at first. When we started the longer rides, we rode them for time, i.e. as fast as we could. Being oldsters, we didn't have the energy to do more than we did.

So that's my story. Any idea on what worked best? And what could we do better? Or is it that I finally did everything right? I've been telling myself for years that it's not training more, it's training smarter that helps most.