Trek The Tower - 40 Story Climb

My goal time going into this race was under 7 minutes.  I had never been past 30 stories without a break so I was still pretty nervous for this but I did a lot of race pace training for this and felt 6.42 to 6.52 was where I would be at.  I talked 13 of my coworkers into doing this race and all were glad they did it.  I figured at least one would yell at me lol.

I was super intimidated when I first walked in.  I looked around and so many people looked really fit and athletic and most younger than I.  I am not sure if I started really fast or the first few floor were short floors as I hit floor 15 in 2 minutes flat which was 25 seconds ahead of my pace time.  I felt great and was thinking I will be able to do this in under 6 minutes. Then at about floor 25 I hit the pain cave.  Started to feel sick to my stomach and two floors later my head started to pound.  My original plan was to really pick it up at floor 25 but I knew that was not going to happen. I started running into traffic about floor 28 and had the thought of just staying behind the people and then said to myself push through and pass them so I did.

I always said I could sprint 5 floor on empty but at this point in the race I didn't want to puke and knew sprinting or not my time would not be near the top in my age group.  I made it to the top in 6.52.  Yes!!! I got under 7.  I could barely walk but there was not much room to lay down anyway so I just walked it off for about 3 or 4 minutes.  It took awhile but I felt some throat burn and some slight coughing once I got down stairs but not too bad.  I think the one mistake I made in training was to stay at race pace for most of my workouts.  Looking back I should have pushed harder in my 15 story training building.  I focused too much on pace.  But looking at the bright side of things is I was 84th out of 1454 climbers.  I have only been training a year and had no cardio base to start so that's pretty good.

I'm still fine tuning my training and learning what it takes to really compete at a high level.  I have to remind myself that cardio is like weight training in that it takes awhile to build up strength and endurance.  Next year at the trek I think I will improve greatly. Goal is under 6 but in reality I want low 5 minute range.  It will be two full years of training by then so no excuses or cardio being new to me :)

DesMoines - 4 Tower Climb April - 2016

Did my first climb ever today. 4 buildings in Desmoines. I meant several climbers and the support and overall amount of nice people was great. The volunteers were pretty awesome too. I couldn't help but give them a little smile when they cheered me on and it picked me up.

So I had a goal of doing the climb in 13 minutes or even faster if I could sprint the last 5 stories of each building. I had calculated what time I should be at on certain floors of each building.  My day did not start out good at all.  I was super nervous and after we took two flights up just to get our timing chips I couldn’t breath and got really dizzy. I didn’t feel nervous once we started moving so I’m not sure if I just was not breathing right because of nerves or was having asthma which I sometimes get when exercising but we were literally walking super slow.  

I took a puff of my inhaler and calmed down.  3 stories into the first building I was struggling to get my breath and I said to myself so much for those goals lol. The steps were very steep compared to what I train on and really zapped me quick plus I started too quick but slowed down to the others pace that were in front of me which was a nice pace but not what I originally planned for pace.  The first building was 15 stories 371 steps

The tallest building, I trained in was 15 stories and the second building was 22 stories 464 stairs. After the second building I was not feeling great. I have vertigo and it was bothering me alot although it didn't slow me down just unpleasant. The 3rd building was 16 stories 324 stairs and I was so spent once I made it to the top. I felt I had nothing left. Even the experienced in way better shape runners were gasping for air. I was shocked to see that because I know how many steps and how hard those guys train. The walk to the 4th and biggest building was mentally taxing. I was thinking you can't do this, you got nothing left, just quit. Then it went to you are going to do this even if it takes 20 minutes for the last building.

The last building was 32 stories 637 stairs. I stopped 3 times for about 5 to 7 seconds. The only thing that kept me moving honestly was I could hear somebody coming up behind me, I was like no way I'm getting passed. This was on the 8th floor of 32. I somehow ran up 4 of the last 7 stories but when I got to the top I was close to passing out. Everything was spinning and starting to go dark and I almost lost my morning breakfast which was very light. Apparently it was obvious as a volunteer said hey take a seat and when I was going to get up a few minutes later said I'd wait a little longer for you to catch your breath. Good call.

I learned alot. Most important thing I learned is just finishing a race is something to be proud of. I still want to win and/or place in the future but fighting through the pain and talking to the other runners is what really matters. I got 15.05 finishing 50^th out of 950 people. It really stunk that I didn’t perform my best.  I thought after breaking all my previous personal best in all my cardio exercises that I’d easily hit 14 and probably 13-time mark.  Honestly once that breathing issue hit me before I even started my desire to push myself as hard as I did in training didn’t happen. Now in the last building I can say I pushed really hard but still could have given it a little more with a better mental state. Funny enough I'm most proud of fighting through all the demons and making it to the top of that last building.

I am going to take a few days off of training and continue to get in better shape.  Next race I’m going to do some warmup stairs in the building to make sure my lungs feel good.  Or if no stairs will do jumping jacks or something.  I don’t think I will enter another race until January or February as the next closest race is willis tower in November and at this time I don’t want to go up 103 stories.  Maybe I will change my mind once my overall cardio is better.  I suppose not bad for 3 months of training but I have high standards for my body and mind.  Next year I really want to give the top guys a run for their money in Desmoines. Guess I will see how fast I progress and at least I will have a few smaller 40 story climbs in the books before that race and feel more confident and comfortable in my abilities J