Running up the Empire State Building

November has been unseasonably warm thus far which has been great as it has allowed me to continue going outdoors for workouts. I've gone out for a few more runs, and yesterday It was a little windier so I decided to do a stair run. I hadn't really ran stairs--a lot of stairs--since high school wrestling. I don't know what possessed me to do it, apart from the fact that I wanted to get a workout similar to running, but I didn't want to use a treadmill or run in the wind. I found a 26 step staircase near a little hill I usually take down to the lake which juts right down next to a bridge and a hill, making it quite secluded from the wind. I just started running up and down, not knowing how long it would be before I got tired. I ended up going 100 laps on the stairs in about 36 minutes for a total of 5200 stairs if you count up and down. I was pretty surprised by how long I was able to go without getting tired. My cardio was fine for the stairs, but my calves really took a beating. I wore my Vibram FF shoes, which meant I was essentially running on the balls of my feet the hole time. Since Vibrams tend to be harder on the calves even during normal running, I think I was more prepared for the stairs, and stairs might be a good way to strengthen the feet to run longer normal runs using Vibrams or bare feet. Today my calves are extremely sore, an experience I haven't had in quite a while; even the day after the marathon they weren't nearly this bad.

I later found out online that they do an annual event running up the Empire State building which has around 1500 stairs. While it definitely helped switching off between going up and then down the steps, running up the ES building doesn't sound too bad now!

Shifting Gears

Its about a month since the Twin Cities Marathon and the weather hasn't changed much since then. It was 50 degrees today with light wind, which allowed for a nice 7 mile run in my Vibrams. I hadn't run too well since the race, but today I went 58:59 which is the fastest time since my toe injury, so I was happy about that. I've only run about 5 times since the marathon, since the weather has been very rainy this month and often too cold to get outside. Instead I started focusing a little bit on my neglected upper body muscles; ever since I sprained my wrist back in kickball I haven't been able to do much upper body work, but it is finally healed enough so that I can do push ups and pull ups again. My upper body muscles are definitely not what they once were, but since my weight is quite low at the moment (around 177) I can still do 50 push ups and 15 pull ups. My bench press has suffered the most, but I don't plan on lifting heavy as it is too counterproductive for distance running. I have also been doing 5 min rounds on a heavybag with 16 oz gloves which has been a decent way to get some cardio without running on the dreaded treadmill.