Makapu'u Repeats

Yesterday was a rest day-I couldn't have done much else if I wanted to- so today I decided to go on out to the Mak and do repeats.   Its an approximate 1 mile distance to the look-out, and winds up about 600 feet on a windy course of old asphalt road.  I like it because the down takes me about 20 minutes, and that it not too much time on my knees, but enough to put some pressure on them during the down.

Back in the fifties I remember my family driving out to Makapu'u in our big shinny green 1948 Packard and my father trying to talk my mother into going up the road to visit the light house keeper and his family.  He was a Coast Guardsman and had been up there on a number of occasions.  Without even knowing what it was like on the Sea side of the turn my mother flatly refused to go.  She was afraid of heights and had no love for long drops into the water. If my father had insisted on taking her up there it would likely have ended their marriage. Even recently my mother would ask me why I enjoyed doing that run.  For her it was just bad juju, and proof that her youngest son had a screw loose.

She might be right about being uncomfortable with the place, as the Hawaiians god Makapu'u was a multi-eyed siren who lured canoes onto the rocks and turned men to stone with her horrible many eyed face.  Her image used to grace the far side of the steep cliffs out near where the light now is, but it crumble away long ago.  But long after her physical demise, we give proper respect to her powers through the nightly rotation of the light.

I did four repeats today in about 2:20.  Which works out to about an average of a 15 minute up and a sub-twenty down. Close enough.  It was hot, sunny and windy.  There were few people out, which made the repeats relatively easy.

So it was a 2:20 workout over less than eight miles and about 4800 feet of elevation change.

The best part of the day was going over to Sandy's and taking a shower under the pipe by the beach.  Cold and invigorating.  I came out of the shower feeling like I had not a care in the world.  Nothing but me, the sea, and the prospect of an ice cold beer.  Pau Hana Brah, don't you know.