Four-peat
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It’s Tuesday, and time to go downtown and do battle with the Aon bulding staircase again. I’m trying to take it easy, but still get in some climbing without messing up my back. The practice climb course is 1,126 steps from the 4th floor up to 55. That’s 690 feet, or 210 meters vertical. My goal for this evening was just to be able to do it four times. I’ve not done that much in one session yet this year, and not since my back went to hell last fall.
The plan was to try for my vertical mile pace from last year. I was able to maintain that on my first climb last Tuesday, but not tonight. I started to fall behind by the 35th floor or so. And instead of getting to 55 in 11:15, it took 11:41. Oh well. I can’t be too disappointed, since as recently as four weeks ago I couldn’t even walk around the block. So I’ll take progress where I can.
The second time up, I went a little slower. I walked up alone, just doing an easy, steady pace. After that, when I got back to the bottom, I saw Jeannie, so we walked up together for my third climb. We just walked and talked all the way to 55. And the last time, I saw Nathan at the bottom. He was heading up for his fourth climb out of a planned five. He was going to do the Vertical Kilometer. So I walked up with him for the fourth time. When I got back to the bottom, I had enough time that I could have done it again, but I figured I didn’t want to push my luck. Four climbs still adds up to a half-mile vertical, and I’m trying to build back up slowly.
Maybe by April I’ll be able to go fast again, but for now, I’m just glad I’m physically able to do it at all.
