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
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