Hills. That is all.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. -- Nelson Mandela

Hills are speedwork in disguise. -- Frank Shorter

I am fairly certain that Nelson Mandela has not trained for the Raleigh 70.3 course, but he's kind of spot on.  There's hills, hills, and more hills.  And then there are some more hills.  And just when you watch says you're almost into T2 and you can get off your bike, there's another damn hill.  HILLS.

You know those silly word ladders that you do in elementary school where you change one letter of a word over and over to get from one word to a related word?  Like getting from WORDS to BOOKS?

WORDS->CORDS->CORKS->COOKS->BOOKS

Well, hills make it easy.  Watch:

HILL->HELL

Yep.  No intermediate step needed.  I hate hills.  Unfortunately, where we live, to bike anywhere interesting requires hills.  And since I'm racing Raleigh, that is probably a plus, not a minus.  Except I don't like them.  I do not like hills.  I do not like to go up.  I do not like to go down.  I do not like them, Sam I am.

I guess I need to tell myself that hills are speedwork in disguise, because my other problem is that my bike is pretty darn slow.  (Actually, in all fairness to my bikes - it is I who is slow, not them.)  Anyway, if riding hills will make me faster, maybe I should think about them in a more kindly light.

I didn't actually solve these myself, because I'm not in elementary school and I have better things to do, but check it out - you can get from HILL to FAST in either 4 steps or 7 steps.

HILL->PILL->PILE->PALE->PACE->FACE->FACT->FAST

HILL->HILT->HALT->HAST->FAST

I'll have to admit I'm partial to the longer ladder, because I don't really use words like HAST all that often, but hey, maybe that means hills can make you faster faster.  :)

You know you wanted a little Miley, right?  Because everyone sings "The Climb" when they're riding hills, right?  Right?