Reading the Grade Before You Fight It
We've spent seven lessons on flat ground, more or less. Breathing, pace, what's in your pack, why cotton socks will ruin your morning. All of that matters, and none of it prepares you for what happens the first time the trail actually tilts up.
I remember my first real hill up the canyon. Stopped three times in the first half mile and told myself the whole way up that I'd built this hill up in my head, that it couldn't really be as bad as my legs were saying. It wasn't in my head. It was just steep, and I was just out of shape, and both of those things got better with time. But that morning I didn't know that yet. I just knew my chest was working hard and my legs felt like somebody else's.
What I didn't have that day was any way to read the hill before I was standing on it fighting it. I want you to have that.
What "reading the grade" means
Before you start up any climb, look at it for ten seconds. Not to psych yourself up. To actually gather information.
Look at the surface. Packed dirt behaves differently than loose gravel, which behaves differently than the rock you get near the top of some of the switchbacks up the canyon. Loose stuff means shorter steps and less speed, full stop, before your foot ever lands on it.
Look at the length of it. Can you see where it levels off, or does it disappear around a bend? If you can see the top, you can pace yourself against it. If you can't, plan on the climb being longer than it looks, because it almost always is.
Look at your footing options. Most hills aren't uniform. There's usually a slightly less steep line, or a spot with better traction, even if it means your foot placement zigzags a little instead of going straight up the fall line. I take that zigzag every time. It costs you nothing and saves your legs.
This is maybe fifteen seconds of standing still before you start moving. People skip it because they want to get going. I'd rather you spend the fifteen seconds.
The steps, once you're on it
Shorten your stride. This is the single biggest adjustment and almost nobody does it on their own. A flat-ground stride on an incline puts your knee and hip in a bad position and burns you out twice as fast. Cut your stride by a third or so. It'll feel like you're taking baby steps. That's correct.
Lean from your ankles, not your waist. If you're bent forward at the hips you're putting weight on your lower back, and that's the part of me that started this whole thing, so I notice.
Let your breathing set the pace, not the other way around. We talked about breathing you can talk through a few lessons back. Uphill is where that rule gets tested hardest. If you can't get a short sentence out, you're going too fast for the grade you're on, and the grade wins that argument every time. Slow your feet until the sentence comes back.
Use your arms. A little pump forward and back helps drive you up and gives your legs something to work with instead of doing it all alone.
The opinion I'll keep repeating
Uphill builds you. That's the whole idea behind this module's name, and I mean it plainly. Your legs, your lungs, your patience, all of it gets built on the climb. Downhill is where people get hurt, and we'll spend a whole lesson on that later, but for now just trust me that the climb is not your enemy. It's the part of the walk doing you the most good, even when it doesn't feel like it.
A caution worth saying plainly
At elevation here, a grade that would be moderate at sea level asks more of you than you expect. Your body's working with less oxygen per breath before you've climbed a single foot. If you're new to this, don't judge a hill by how it looked in a photo or how a friend described it. Read it fresh, every time, with your own eyes and your own legs that day.
And if halfway up a climb your legs are saying something different than they said at the trailhead, believe them. Slowing down partway up a hill isn't failing to read it. It's reading it correctly and adjusting, which is the entire point of this lesson.
Before next time
Next time you're out, even on a small rise in your neighborhood, stop at the bottom and actually look at it for those fifteen seconds before you start. See what you'd have missed by just walking straight into it.