Originally Posted by
Koyote
Including some actual hill training would be useful, but is not essential. Any training that builds aerobic capacity will help for your event. You can incorporate interval training into your commute rides — work up to longer intervals over a period of a few weeks. By “longer” I mean 10 mins or even 20 mins.
I think that's basically true, but I think there's a.psychological benefit from doing some of this training on hills--if you know from experience you have got this, the site.of a slope is a lot less intimidating. I also think that pacing yourself on a hill gets easier with practice and is somewhat different than doing so on flatlandia.