Aerobic Oxidative Stair Climbing Workout

Two (Tuesday May 17, 2011) days ago I walked up 7 flights of stairs at the

University of North Carolina Charlotte's library. It ended up being 154 stairs. I completed it in 1:18. I was pretty winded. Once again, it goes to show that I haven't prepared appropriately for the race this coming Saturday.

Today (Thursday May 19, 2011) I decided to walk the 22 flights of the library stairs at UNCC. The library only has 10 floors, so I walked 10 flights twice and then walked down to the 8th floor and walked back up to the 10 floor once. This equaled 488 stairs.

I wore a back pack with about 15 pounds of books. I didn't time myself. I was drenched with sweat after this workout. What a tough activity.

There is no way I am going to be able to run the whole race on Saturday. Maybe I'll walk the first 20 flights and try to run the last 10. Since race day is so close, I didn't want to make myself sore - so I chose the Fireman's approach to climbing the stairs. I performed a steady and fast walk the whole way.

We'll see how race day goes. I may do an easy fireman's walk tomorrow at the library - maybe 10 flights and that's it.

First Resistance Training Session for Stair Racing

Wednesday I ran stairs in the morning and lifting weights in the afternoon. This is the workout I completed:

-15 Minutes Incrementally on the Stationary Cycle (starting at 10, two level increases every three minutes)

-Two Sets of 15 Repetitons on the Unilateral Leg Extension Machine (not a fan of leg extensions; the light weight helps warm my knee joints up)

-Two Sets of 15 Repetitons on the Lying Leg Curl Machine (again, just to warm-up the knee joints up)

-Three Sets of 12 Repetitions doing Stationary Lunges

-Three Sets of 10 Repetitions doing Lateral Squats

-Three Sets of 10 Repetitions doing Deadlifts

-Three Sets of 12 Repetitions on the Leg Press Machine

-Three Sets of 10 Repetitions doing Single Leg Squats (didn't go very deep-firs time doing them in awhile)

-Three Sets of 15 Repetitions on the Standing Leg Curl Machine

-Three Sets of 15 Repetitions doing the lateral Mini-band Walk

The day after I completed this workout, my right knee ached a little. I tihnk I went to heavy on the Stationary Lunges. Also, running the stairs in the morning and performing resistance training in the afternoon was

probably not a good idea for a 40 year old man who is 5'6" and weighs 193 pounds. Yesterday I took the day off. I didn't get up and run stairs this morning, and my knee feels fine.

8 days before the race!

Curtis Bickham
mr_bickham@msn.com

Pace Training for Stair Racing

This morning I woke up at 4:54 am. I made it to my stairs at about 5:15.

I used the same 50 stairs that I used on Monday. I approached training with a strategy this morning. After a five minute warm-up, I ran up and down the stairs five times (125 up/125 down), at a pace that was probably 85-90% of my maximum heart rate. I did this for four sets. I rested about three minutes in between sets. Below are my times (up & down stairs included):

Set 1 - Every Step [3:48]

Set 2 - Every Other Step [3:10]

Set 3 - Every Step [3:34]

Set 4 - Every Other Step [3:01]

What I learned from Today's Training

*Always walk down the stairs

1. In stair racing/tower running, the emphasis is on ascending the stairs not descending them.

2. Safety is always the priority; running down stairs can be
dangerous for anyone, especially someone who is fatigued.

3. Landing and propelling yourself from the balls of the feet will
save wear and tear on your Achilles Tendon, and put tension on
the powerful calf muscles

My race next Saturday is a shorter event (479 steps) compared to most of the other stair racing events (1000-2000 steps) I have read about.

I ran track in high school. I was a sprinter, the longest event I competed in was the 400 meter dash. Most of my events were in the 60 - 200 meter range. When I ran the 400 meter dash, I ran it in a little over a minute (indoors). I thought I was going to die. The lactate accumulation was unbearable.

From all of my personal experience as an athletes, my professional experiences from training athletes and non-athletes, from what I have learned in school (exercise physiology) and from what I have learned from obtaining a top-notch strength and conditioning certification - I am fast twitch muscle dominate. "Stair sprinting" is going to have to be my strategy. Pacing myself in the beginning of the event is going to be crucial for anything over 500 steps. Next week's race is short (479 stairs) and I want to finish in three minutes or less, so I will sprint most of this event.

Until next time...

Curtis Bickham
mr_bickham@msn.com

Preparing for my First Stair Climb Race...

I was introduced to stair climbing/tower running about two months ago. I volunteered at the Duke Energy Race for the Top event in Charlotte, NC. Almost 500 racers showed up for the first event of this kind in the Queen City. This race was over 1,100 stairs and 49 flights.

Right away, I noticed that the event was NOT stereotypical - some athletes looked like runnes, others looked like muscle heads. Watching people go through this process made me anxious. Once the event was over, I went home and found a stair climb event to compete in.

The Fight For Air Climb in Columbia, SC is what I found. The race is on Saturday, May 21, 2011. The building is The Capitol Center, it has 479 stairs. After looking at the winning times of some of the 180 races tha are held around the world, I calculated that winners spend between 0.004 and 0.006 seconds on each stair. Most elite runners skip a stair or two so the time is about 0.008 - 0.012.

I've let time pass me by, and now the race is less than two weeks away. I haven't done any lower body training until this past Saturday (5/7/2011). Training for stair racing or tower running as it is called is difficult because there aren't many tall buildings that allow people to run in them. My background is strength and conditioning so I decided to get creative.

The most stairs that I could find, that I could run uninterrupted, is located on a local college campus. On weekends, parking is free. The total stairs I used last Saturday equaled 50. So my first stair race workout was done running 14 times up 50 stairs. That's 700 up, and 700 down for a total of 1,400 stairs.

My first session was pretty straight-forward. The first five flights, I jogged up the stairs and ran down, then I walked up and down the next five, and jogged up and down the last four.

My time was 10 minutes and 32 seconds according to my watch.

I performed my second run this morning at 5:00 am. I used the same fifty stairs. This time I decided to complete 15 flights. That ended up being 750 stairs up and 750 down for a total of 1,500 stairs. My strategy was a little different this time. I walked the first five flights, jogged the second five flights and sprinted the third five flights. I also walked down the stairs in between all flights. I used this approach thinking that I can save my legs some lactate accumulation if I start at a slower velocity and increase my speed as I got closer to the end of the run. I also used the hand rail on the side to pull myself forward as I completed the workout - I've seen other Tower Runners use this technique. Lastly, I timed myself on the descent of the stairs. I did this closer to the end of the training session, next time I will do it when I am fresh. My time for descending the stairs was 38 seconds.

My total time ended up being 11 minutes and 21 seconds. I created a calculator that breaks down my total descent time (5:42), the time I spent ascending the stairs (5:47)and the average time I spent on each stair (0.0073). As I mentioned previously, I need to average 0.004 - 0.006 seconds per stair to do run a competitive time at the Fight For Air Climb in Columbia, SC on May 21, 2011.

If I can pull off a 3 minute run I will be very pleased.

Until next time...

Curtis Bickham