Sunday, July 09, 2006

Austin Hill Comparisons

I have been doing lots of hill repeats as part of training for Pikes Peak. So I was curious how the different hills compare to each other. I recorded some runs on my Garmin GPS generated the graphs below to compare the following hills in Austin:

  • Far West Blvd (at Landera Norte)
  • Lander Norte
  • Jester
  • Hill Of Life (HOL)
  • Smokey Mountain

For more statistics and detials of each measurement, I have posted that information here: (click Here). Note that the GPS device is not very accurate on elevation, so the grade numbers are higher than actual on that page. For example, Abe (professional surveyer) estimated HOL to be a 12%-15% grade, not the 20% reading from the GPS device measurement.

I thought this might give me some more insight into training for Pikes Peak, but instead, the only message I get is I need to do more hill repeats.

Comparison of Landera Norte and Far West:


Comparison of Landera Norte and HOL:


Comparison of Pikes Peak and Austin Hills:


Another good description of hilly runs in Austin can be found here: (link)

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5 comments:

  1. wow, it's actually kind of funny to look at the Austin hills compared to Pike's Peak. So that's why they call us flatlanders...

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  2. So, from the last chart, about 15 to 18 repeats of Far West would be good practice for Pikes Peak?

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  3. David, If you can do that then you would be in good shape for Pikes. However, it might be over training or give increased risk of injury. Far West is steeper than the climb and so doing that number of repeats on HOL would also be good for Pikes Peak.

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  4. Wow, went looking for a hill to hike and found this. I guess nothing compares to working out on the Manitou Incline followed by breakfast at Adams Mountain Cafe. Good luck with your training.

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  5. Not quite the same as hitting the Manitou Incline followed by breakfast at Adam's Mountain Cafe. Sigh. Up and down and up down up down it is....

    ReplyDelete

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