Since I've gotten back into Sprint Training (specifically Hill Sprints), it made me reminisce about the times I did them in Santa Cruz in my early-mid 20's. The hill I use to train on was about a quarter of a mile from my house if that and it was the road that led to the DeLaVeaga Golf Course that was also a Disc Golf Course behind it, that hill to this day is one of the steepest I've ever done. Just the incline alone would even make you question your sanity.
I would do up to 10 Sprints at 10-30 seconds at a time and this was all I could do, no matter how hard it was, ten was my limit. Whenever I did it, no one else was really around and just to hike that thing to get to the golf course would take down some really fit people. I never did the whole Hill, if anyone would be crazy enough to pull that off would be a Olympic Primed Kurt Angle or someone of that Caliber, maybe Walter Payton. The point is, training with a hill like this took guts and doing it off and on tested me.
When you got a good hill, make the most it and that's what I did. I busted my ass on that damn thing and it was one of the best times in my training career, I really wished I had some footage to show how crazy this thing was. If you go to google and research a little, you might find something. Not too far away from this is another hill that led to a restaurant/resort called the Chaminade and fun fact about that hill, that was the same hill Matt Furey trained on while training for the world championships in shuai chiao in 1997. I was 13 at that time and never heard of him then. He was basically a nobody back then and was only a couple years shy of training with Karl Gotch.
Sprinting the Delaveaga Hill wasn't for competition or anything, it was just a time in my life where I wanted to know what it was like to do that kind of training. It was hard and I wish I was more consistent with it but life has a way of turning you in a different direction and although I was still training everyday, Sprints weren't a priority and it was a shame on my end. I use to take my girlfriend at the time there and my best friend, neither one wanted to do Sprints with me and would just watch. I don't think we ever fully climbed the hill, maybe once or twice and that nearly killed me.
Today, I'm back at doing Hill Sprints and it reminds me of how important they are even more now than all those years ago because in my 20's, I was 15-30 lbs lighter and they were hard but fun to do but now in my mid 30's, it's a different ball game and I don't want to lose out on having a good level of testosterone and lowering my body fat. As we age, our hormones get lower and it becomes harder and harder to maintain that youthfulness and drive in the body to produce natural Growth Hormone. I know where I'm at fitness wise and have decent cardio to prove it on certain levels but I want to build that explosiveness and jump start the metabolism and burn calories like a furnace again.
After a few sessions now, I do feel a difference in my body composition and my need to fuel up with food and have lost a few pounds in the process but I also know this is just the beginning and got some work to do. This is important to me and the beauty of this type of training is that the workout doesn't take long at all, just sprint up for 10 seconds, walk down and repeat. The whole workout without the rest period is like no more than 1:40 seconds if you do 10 10 second bursts.
It's all uphill from here.
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