This one was the best speedwork ever on the stairs.

I felt pretty good, so I had planned sprints up the stairs. I knew I could do 12 sprints of 100 steps each – with rest after each. I didn’t know if there would be anything left after that. I did a variation of this workout a few days before – and it went very well. I climbed to the top in 478 seconds. This time I did it in 434 I think. Hard to remember, but I know I beat my first try by 40 seconds this time.

So, I’m just talking about the first climb to the top of the 1,256 stairs. I’m not counting the rest time in that number. This is by far the fastest I have been up the stairs… and I’m hoping that, with repeated workouts like this – I’ll shave a minute off my overall climb to the top. At the moment I’m at 11:15 (min:sec) to climb as fast as I can all in one effort. I’ve already improved by 45 seconds over what my fastest time used to be 4 years ago when I weighed even less than I do now (75Kg – 165 lbs).

After the first time up the mountain I rested for 2 minutes… then headed back down to the bottom – taking about 7:20 to get down the steps.

I rested at the bottom for a minute, and headed back up – sprinting sections again. I thought I’d go until I couldn’t any more.

That’s exactly what happened, but it was strange… if I rested for about a minute between sprints – I recovered enough to sprint again in nearly all instances. There were times I was crawling like a dog up the last 20 steps to hit 100 or 80… whatever I could do. There were times I just could not sprint, so switched to 2 steps at a time and walking as fast as I could.

My watch only has 30 lap memory so the times for my last set of stair climbing – are a mystery. Damn me – I need a Garmin with altitude meter and unlimited lap times!

Yesterday I rested and today I’m asking whether my feet are ok to do something. They hurt – but, they always hurt for 3 days after a very intense workout. I think OK. I may do some jogging today, and hit the stairs tomorrow. Or, may go with Alfred to the stairs today. He was considering a multiple climb effort this morning and called it off early. That was great, I told him, because it was about 90 degrees F by 7:30 am. Super hot day!

Ok then, more to follow. Interested in seeing what my resting heart rate is after I recover – if I ever let myself recover. Can I get down to 36 bpm like I did when doing triathlons years ago?

Keep in mind, if you are a stair climber and you’re trying to compare what you did with what I did – it’s impossible for a few reasons.

1. The stairs up the mountain are infinitely varied in size, depth, angle of climb. The stairs in towers are uniform in size, steepness, and depth.

2. The stairs I climb average 8.75 inches. There are 20- inch high steps at times… The stairs in towers average 6-7 inches.

3. It’s 95 degrees F when I’m climbing, with high humidity.

4. Railings at the mountain are not easy to use – so I don’t use them.

5. I have to go back down 1,256 stairs after I climb the first time. It does take something out of me when doing repeats!

Usually I can do 100 stairs in about 35 seconds – running up. When I have an easy set of 85 stairs that I can double-step the whole way – I can sprint up in 15 seconds. That is nearly 6 steps per second. I hope within the next month to get a good tower climb in while in Bangkok – will see if I can do 5-6 steps per second up a 90 floor climb (with rest after each sprint, of course).

Sidenote – I had a doctor listen to my heart when I took baby to get immunizations. He said – sounds great. No murmur or anything weird. That’s good. I’ll keep pushing then…