You may be on to something with the mental angle. I know when I'm doing that, I find myself doing things like counting off crank strokes to see how many times it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop...err...top of the hill, or watching the sweat drip off my face, or staring at my straps to see if they're going to snap--anything to lose myself in the moment and not focus on how much of the hill remains.

Pics from this morning: http://www.zweknu.org/blog/index.rht...&c=T&ft=T#p711

Nothing great, but pleasant enough.