Another half-mile death march
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Tonight at stair practice, I wanted to try an experiment. After last Wednesday, when I was able to do four consecutive climbs all under 11 minutes, I wanted to see if I could do four close to 10 minutes each. I knew I could go under 10 easily on the first climb, so I wanted to see how close to 10 I could get on the subsequent climbs.
Of course, it was probably a Bad Thing that I forgot to bring my water bottle along tonight.
The first time up, I was aiming for a pace of 5 floors per minute. That’s reasonable brisk, without being punishing. And I got to the top in 9:48. So the trick was going to see how close I could come to that pace on the second time up.
As it turned out, the answer was, “well, sort of close.” The first climb, I averaged about 11.5 seconds per floor. On the second, I did about 12.5. The third was about 13.9. I think the lack of water was taking a toll. After the third, I was pretty tired. But I still wanted to go up again, just for the sake of obstinacy and to have a vertical half-mile for the evening. But I was pretty well wiped-out by that time. So I didn’t even bother timing the last time up. I don’t really want to know how slow I was going. But I made it to the top.
After I came back down, I made a point of stopping at Famima!! across from the Aon building on the way back to the subway station. I got a quart of Gatorade and chugged it down on the sidewalk. And then I felt slightly better.
Oh well, they can’ all be gems.
