Delusional?

One week remains before my stair climbing event. The nerves are starting to kick in. As this event will be the first of its kind for me, I have no idea what to expect. I've been stairstepping, but the machine can't truly prepare me for actual, most likely concrete, stationary stairs. I need real stairs this week to get a better sense of what's in store. I lamented my need for real stairs to my friend, and she suggested I run the stairs in one of the parking garages here in town. Brilliant! Why hadn't I thought of this? And from where I was sitting across from her at the coffee shop, looking out the window, I saw the perfect parking garage. Tomorrow its stairs shall be mine.

I do think I've made fitness gains training for this event. I was able to go 40 minutes today at a speed I couldn't do four weeks ago. From the stairstepper, I went to the elliptical for an additional 20 minutes, getting in 1.7 miles, the farthest I've been able to do in a 20 minute period. Looking at this improvement, I believed I was ready to set a goal for the stair climbing event: 7 ascends of the 30 floors in an hour. Hubby thinks I'm crazy to think I can accomplish 7 in an hour, but I'm going to stick with this goal. Being a newbie at this, I may be completely and utterly in la-la land. But, as the old saying goes, no guts no glory.

Perhaps what I should do is reserve the right to change my goal. Tomorrow's parking garage stair climb will give me a better idea of where I really am with my stairclimbing abilities, so yeah, I think I'll wait.

Comments

John Romeo Alpha said…
Stair climbing is brutal! When we do hikes that are more vertical, like Piestewa Peak or the Grand Canyon, we refer to them as "staircases" to emphasize the challenging element. I am pleased with my own fitness when it comes to spinning on my bicycle in the flatlands. But going up, whether hills, or stairs, is a whole other challenge. Good luck!
February 13, 2011 at 9:58 AM
JK said…
See, that's what I'm thinking too, that the vertical is what's going to do me in. When I cycle, I love attacking hills, and Hubby is always saying I have a motor in my tush that helps me zip up hills while others are struggling. For some reason, I can deal with hills way better than the average person (but I can't get myself to run a ten minute mile--go figure). But hills via cycling aren't steps which require a different kind of leg action.

Thanks for the luck. I'll pocket it and pull it out when the going gets really tough.
February 13, 2011 at 11:51 AM
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