Mountain Gate Hills

Sat. Oct. 15, 2007

9am- 3 mile warmup, 4 x 1.1 mile uphills, 3 mile cooldown

So this hill is up in the Santa Monica Mts., and is a pretty long tough hill. There is no specific time to run when running up, its just pretty much "Survive", as some people would call it. You climb 800 feet in a mile, so it definitly has a little bit of incline to it. So we warmed up and did our 6 x downhill strides, then were driven to the bottom to start our climbs. This was my second time doing these hills, Libby's, Matt's and Ozzie's first time. First thing I will say is that Matt climbed these hills like a BEAST. Second thing I will say is that you really feel like you are going nowhere up these hills. So our first ascent went Matt, Ozzie, Myself and then Libby. Matt and Ozzie both were under 8 min, I was just over and Eric was 8:52, which is awesome. The order of the hills stayed the same througout most of the workout. Matt, Ozzie and myself were the only ones who had to do 4, everyone else had to do 3, which makes total sense although seems unfair.
The last hill, when it just the 3 bulls, seemed to never come, but then all of a sudden we were almost finished. I was quite proud of myself up until this point cause I had convinced myself to stick with it and be confident, and all these thoughts started making me feel great. We attacked the hill the same as normal, Matt and Ozzie out hard, then me slightly behind. Matt took off and then Ozzie started coming back to me half way up the hill which was a great boost for me, because it made me keep my composure and stay relaxed. He came up next to me and I could just tell he was shot; his breathing was bad, he had no leg lift. I'm not saying he was sucky, he had just worked real hard the other ones and was paying for it now. So I passed Ozzie and made my way to the top picking it up a little with about 100 to go. 7:59! I was so pumped to hear that. Previously I had averaged 8:31 for all the hills. This time I had run (8:07, 8:05, 8:15, 7:59) averaging 8:07. HUGE IMPROVEMENT. Ozzie claimed the 4th all time avg with 7:52, even though he was hurting on the last one. Matt on the other hand, crushed the all-time avg best, which was previously held at 7:37, with his 7:17 avg. That is insane in all regards to this hill, he is a great addition to the team, and he is a kick ass guy too. Then it was cool down time and then off to work, but not before a little lunch, which then I decided to show up an hour late for work.

10.5 miles today