Now at four reps of the Cathedral of Learning stair climb!

Mar 10, 2013 · 2 minute read · Comments
exerciseCathedral of LearningPittsburghPittsburgh MarathonSteel City Road RunnersFight for Air Climb

Today I joined a Team Ferlee group stair climb workout at the Cathedral of Learning for the second time. Two weeks ago I did two reps and ten floors total.

I am still in recovery from doing yesterday a really tough 12 mile Steel City Road Runners training run for the Pittsburgh Marathon, so I didn’t know what exactly I planned to do.

It turned out that thanks to Bill, with whom I finally climbed for the first time today, I did more than I had originally intended. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have, but I did, so what’s done is done.

Here’s what happened.

The workout

The team did the first two reps sort of together, which meant not very fast for Bill or me. That was fine. I like socializing and going easy to warm up.

On the third rep, Bill decided he wanted to do a fast one, so he timed himself. I tried to follow him, but in my depleted condition had no plan to kill myself to overtake him. I just wanted to test an honest genuinely fast, but not all out, third rep.

He ended up doing the third rep in 7:26, his new personal record. I did not time myself, but finished probably about ten seconds behind him, I gathered, so I did around 7:36. This was clearly the fastest I’ve also done one rep of the stair climb, not that I’ve been timing myself much in the past months (check out my reports from two months ago, when I timed myself just to get an idea of my baseline).

My fourth rep

Everyone was done after the third rep, but I decided to hang around to do one last rep by myself, since I felt strangely OK even after the hard third rep; recovery from that seemed rather quick. The marathon training I’ve been doing has clearly helped with my endurance for stair climbing as well.

So I did an untimed fourth rep just because I could.

Conclusion

Having done four reps with good form is starting to give me confidence that in two weeks, I’ll be able to put in a good all-out effort in the Fight for Air Climb.