Thursday, February 12, 2009

A run up Jacob's Ladder at Lunchtime

I first heard about Jacob's ladder - well the Auckland version - from Andrew's blog last year. It sounded suitable scary for me to want to run it sometime.

Wikipedia tells me that its the:
Jacob's Ladder is a ladder to heaven, described in the Book of Genesis, which the biblical patriarch Jacob envisions during his flight from his brother Esau.

The Auckland one is really the ladder to Waitemata Street which was OK not exactly heaven though. I didn't see any angels there. (too hot and humid - 27 deg near 100% humidity)


The view from the top.

Run up them ok bit weird being able to see through the stairs at the ground behind - bit of vertigo there. At the top got told off!


Well it did say "Excercise Extreme" ;)

Certainly the steepest ladder I've seen but I think the one in Waikowhai park is worse - longer.

Thereafter the run turned me into a sweaty mess - literally broke out in perspiration after the ascent. Lovely.
The run wasn't done though took in the top section of College Hill, a stretch of Ponsonby Road, and another uphill in Western Park before heading down Myers Park and back to work. At around 4km I thought "who's stupid idea was this?" :). Felt the climb up the side of Western Park was tougher than the ladder though.


The park sections were the best - the bits along Ponsonby and K-Road were quite good for practicing your race passing skills with all the people out walking.
Haven't had one of these for a while:


6.9km
in 32:42 (4:43min/km).

Moral of the story - hills and stairs are good for you!

3 comments:

Andrew is getting fit said...

Heh! Jacob's ladder at midday. You are a nutter.

I didn't find going up Curran too bad. It's not really that steep. Mind you I'm not blasting up there like a bat out of hell.

Bruce said...

Here's Tui Billboard for you. Those steps look like fun ... yeah right.

Steve Stenzel said...

I love that you just extracted "Excercise Extreme" from that sign. That's great!!

And that elevation chart is NUTS!! Nice job!!