 |
| Me 2nd from Right with the Rewind 94.9 Rump Shakers |
Climbing is the operative word. In fact, I’m pretty certain I heard a hair
raising cackle echo in the stairwell on my way up that gave me chicken skin. “Ooh ooh ah ah ah ahhh!” No doubt I am half
man, half monkey. Ask my wife. If I could’ve clawed the handrails and walls
with my feet, I would have. Now I’m not
saying it was easy. To the contrary, it
was donkey wheezing, sniveling, spastic arms flailing being chased the boogie
man hard. Bounding is a good term. Tree-squirreling would be another. It was not pretty, but fast and effective.
 |
| Evil Monkey in Full-Effect |
Aside from finding a similarly tight stairwell with
handrails within reach on both sides, the 2
nd best training would be
boarding a cruise ship as it pulls away from port. You’re not running a gangway so much as
getting from the dock to the ship before the rope-railed gangway goes crashing into the
ocean. The 3
rd best training
would be running from an axe murderer in your basement. You would not run. You would not step on the stairs. With your heart rate pegged at max you would
go from basement to 1
st floor by whatever means possible, a foot on a wall, a hand on a pipe. If you must run stairs, the closest analogy
is running the pedestrian stairs over an overpass...as it crumbles onto the freeway
below. That is the Fight for Air Climb.
 |
| Secret Weapons |
As it turns out for me, cyclocross bike racing was a near
perfect training. You don’t run up the
stairs. Hands reaching and grasping, you pull your way up, your feet cross-eye aimed at two steps higher. Look
at the position of a cyclist.
Handlebars become handrails.
Pedals are two-stairs high. In cyclocross and mountain bike racing, we’re used to getting the “holeshot”, first into the first corner with quick fast twitch speed, trying to essentially eliminate your competition by the first turn. Most races are all about the first lap, the first 7 to 7.5 minutes of the race. My time at Climb The Carew was 6:27. I trained for the
Cyclocross Masters World Championships in January with months of 30 and 15 second sprint intervals. Obviously, some of that fitness is still with me. The cycling training success fits the advice Marty Sanders, 2012 Vertical Mile Winner, gave me before the
start. He said, “Take two stairs at a
time, use the hand rails, don’t run and give ‘er hell when you hit the hallway
with 15 stories to go.” Marty is also an
accomplished cyclist and half monkey as well.
I’m not kidding. I
don’t think I could race a 5k without being laid up with sore hammies for two
days. To confess, I have been running,
if you want to call it that. I “run” on
a treadmill. My fastest and longest run is 90 seconds at 7.5mph. High
speed intervals. In my head I run like Jason Bourne for 90 seconds, and then walk for a minute. In reality I run like I'm escaping a house fire and walk like a zombie. Then I do it over and over again for about 15
minutes. That’s it.
 |
| The Next Best Thing to Monkey Feet |
I will confess. I did
inadvertently have a secret weapon, maybe two, okay 3. It was chilly, so I wore a thin set of
full-finger gloves on a short jog from my car the Carew Tower. Made for cycling, they had sticky grippers on
the palm and fingers, perfect for gripping handlebars and as it turns out 45
stories of railings. I wore a pair of
tall day glow green tall striped socks (pictured above). They
make me go fast to run away from the heckling.
Oh yeah, and I just got a new pair of
Pearl Izumi Peak II trail running shoes. They’re light, have a snug and
soft close fit, and are the perfect color of blue. While most running shoes might come close to those attributes, the killer grip of Pearl Izumi's sole stands out. No matter where my feet happened to land, I didn’t slip once, obviously the next best thing to having monkey feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment