Training PB in the tower! and suffering through cold showers!

A couple of weeks ago I started tower running training monday and wednesday mornings with a group of friends from work.

The tower we run up is 28 stories high (approx 600 steps).

I also trained in this tower last year. Up until last week my personal best time was 3 minutes 31 seconds.

Last wednesday I smashed that with a run of 3 minutes 17 seconds!

Super happy!

Short term (next two months) I'd like to get that down to under 3 minutes. Longer term I think 2 minutes 30 seconds is possible. That would be a stretch goal though!

One of the things I love about tower running is that it's just you versus the stairs. When I was bike racing there were so many variables; weather conditions, road conditions, punctures or mechanical failure. In the tower all the variables are within yourself. It's interesting to tweak something (like what I eat prior to running) and then seeing the effect this has on overall time.

It's intersting (and motivating) seeing my times improve as my weight decreases.

It's also meditative. You go through so much pain running up stairs that you need to be able work through this pain. Maybe block it out, maybe embrace it, I'm not sure yet. It's all a learning process.

Another learning process I've been trying recently is cold showers. There's lots of benefits associated with cold showers:



I guess part of the reason I want to take them is to get used to the suffering. Taking a really cold shower is hard. I'm definitely not there yet and I can't really say it's got easier over the past week but I'm at the stage now where I look forward to the cold showers, relish them even. And I feel great afterwards! Last night I slept poorly. I was completely out of vegetables and fruit (very unusual) so I had a bowl of cereal before I went to bed. Big mistake! Was up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep.

But the cold shower snapped me out of my funk and set me up for a good day.

Give it a try yourself and let me know how you find it...

Racing goals and training plan

Since completing the stair running race last week I've been busy seeing what other races I can do in Europe over the next few months.

I found two that I want to aim for; a tower race in Vienna, Austria on 31st August and a tower race in Barcelona, Spain on 6th October.

There's also an event in the Netherlands at the end of June so the events are close enough together to be motivational but not so close that I can't recover and improve between events.

As for my training I was thinking of something along these lines:
--- Monday:
- Bike to work and back (this is 75km total)
- Run 2-3 times the head office stairs (27 flights)

--- Tuesday
- Bike to work and back

--- Wedneday
- Bike to work and back

--- Thursday
- Bike to work and back
- Tabata workout on my stepper machine in the evening (this workout is very short but excruciatingly hard!)

--- Friday
Gym

--- Saturday
3 hour bike ride

--- Sunday
Rest



As well as the above training I want to do stretching, yoga and core strength exercise 2 or 3 times a week.

I'm a little bit worried about the risk of knee injuries from stair running. I read an article today that claimed running stairs could really damage the knees. What I've found is that running (or walking) down stairs puts a lot of stress on my knees but I've never had any problem with running up stairs alone. Because I'm always taking the lift downstairs I'm only ever going up.

But in any case I'll limit the actual running on stairs to once per week (at least initially).


Diet
The impact of carrying excess weight is massive when running up stairs. Massive in terms of how much it slows your down but also significant in the extra stress placed on your muscles and joints.

So I really want to buckle down over the next 3 months and lose a fair bit of weight. I had my fat percentage measured a couple of months ago and it was 21%. In the next 3 months I'd like to get that down below 15%. That definitely won't be easy. Lets see how I do. The strategy is to cut out all processed food, alcohol, sugar and to base my diet primarily on vegetables and some fruits. I'm doing that already for the most part, the next 3 months is about going hard core and cutting out any cheating.

That will be tough.

tower running....

Now that I'm sleeping well again I've got loads of energy and motivation to take on challenges that seemed impossible a couple of years ago.

One of those challenges is tower running.

Tower running is a sport that involves running up the stairs of skyscrapers. 15 years ago I competed in my first tower race, 1267 steps of Sky City tower in Auckland, New Zealand. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life! The following year I did it again. This time I trained for it and managed to get 7th out of a field that had some of the best stair climbers in the world.



After that race I had plans of training hard and competing in the mecca of stair climbing, the Empire State Building run-up.

However over the 15 years that followed I gradually lost sight of all my sporting goals and ambitions.

Even before I got sick with Lyme disease I would never have thought that I could give tower running another go. It's a horrendously hard sport and I never thought I could recapture the fitness that I would need to be competitive.

But now life is different. I feel much, much fitter and mentally able to take on things that would have been too daunting a few years ago. This applies not only to sport but also to work, leaning languages, dealing with difficult people, etc.

So recently I started training for stair climbing. My first event will be a run up the Almere WTC tower. This is relatively short (30 stories) but definitely still hard enough for a first challenge.

Yesterday I ran up the 30 flights of stairs in our head office twice. I was fairly pleased with my fitness but of course it's nowhere near as good as it was 15 years ago.

But rather than feel disheartened I'm looking forward to the training and improvements in my fitness that are to come.......

My goal is to compete in some of the world cup stair climbing races and ultimately I want to compete in the Empire State run-up. And I want to be competitive, at least top ten in the big races.

It won't happen overnight, but lets see how it goes over the next year or two....