My "little" friend

I say little because at only 1262m Helicopter Hill is relatively small compared to the other peaks in the Craigieburn Range. But for 21 long minutes yesterday it didn't feel little at all.

Talking with Pierre when I was in France he recommended a 25-30min (or 600 vertical meters, whatever came first) hard climb once every 1 or 2 weeks, while Javi said he would do 13- 15 mins climbs like this.

The key is doing it on the same slope or hill each time so you can gage your performance. It's a little bit like a race against the clock in some ways.

I used MapMyRun.com again for the Helicopter Hill run.

In winter we did similar "tests" like this up Porters and Cheeseman ski areas and once all the snow has gone I will do similar runs up the Avalanche Peak Track on Arthur's Pass! This is a really good one, one of my favorite runs. My fastest time from the AP DOC center to the summit is 55mins and I have heard of folks doing it in the low 50's. A sub 50min effort would be pretty huge..........