Digswell Hill Climb

Today was the end of season hill climb up New Road, Digswell over a distance of 0.98 mile. So I had a go and did it in 4 mins 44 secs. I was quite disappointed with this time at first as I was quite a bit slower than the majority of riders. On reflection though, it is my first year of cycling and to help me go faster up hills I need to improve on two things - tactics of going up this hill (which gear and how fast to pedal in different bits) and more importantly, losing another 5 or 6 kg over the winter...