Holy Spin Class

Wednesday 12/28/2011

I just got back from a spin class at the YMCA they just built near my house, which is really convenient for training purposes.  But anyways, WOW, what a workout tonight.  I have been to many spin classes before but this one really pushed me to my limits and I really really had to dig down deep and stay focused and ignore the pain.  Mentally it was one of the hardest workouts Ive done in a long time.  We did a mountain climb workout and we were practically out of our seats the entire 45 minutes of class.  Made me feel like Lance climbing the Alp d'Huez in the The Le Tour de France.  I pushed myself to complete exhaustion and so hard that I was dripping in sweat and got off the bike and was walking around like a new born giraffe.  everybody in the classes was looking at me like I was weird but I didnt care, I worked to complete exhaustion in a workout, and thats what I need to be doing if I want to be great in the running and stair climbing world.  


In these stair races I have found out very quickly that it is a huge mental game.  Your legs are usually going to feel like crap on the 20th maybe even 10th floor of an 80 or even 103 floor climb but you have to find that mind frame where you just insist on ignoring that hurt and burn and pushing through to complete exhaustion.  Check out some  of the videos online of climbers just completed wiped out physically and mentally at the top of these climbs.  its not for show, they are like that because they made themselves hurt.  I am going to continue doing these spin classes and continuing to make my body hurt like they do in races.  Which reminds me of a song.  Check it out. 

Two Solid Weeks of Training; in Preperation for Empire State Building RunUp

It has been 2 weeks now since Ive really been turning it on training wise in getting ready or ESBRU race on Feb 8th in NYC.  The ESBRU (Empire State Building Run Up) is considered the "SuperBowl" of stair climbing races in the world, just for the fact that it has the best athletes in the stair climbing world come to race.  Here lately I have really been turning it up a notch, incorporating 2-a-days as well.  Here is a glimps of what Ive done on a day to day basis the past two weeks.  Check it out...

Tuesday:  4.6 mile run
Wednesday:  20 mile bike interval sprints
Thursday: 3.25 mile run
Friday:  20 mile bike interval sprints
Saturday:  1 mile run, Jacobs Ladder Workout (717 ft. in 5 minutes); 4min. leg press tabata workout
Sunday:  10 mile bike, 4min. tabata bike wokout

Monday:  5 mile run
Tuesday:  2 mile run, 3 x 32 floors, 1 x 5floor sprints, plyos abs
Wednesday:  15 mile spin class
Thursday:  3 mile tempo run, 6:15 mile pace
Friday:  1.5 mile run, 3 x 5min row machine, leg press tabata, lifting abs
Saturday:  10 mile tabata bike workout
Sunday:  .5 mile run, 5 x 32 floors at the Hilton, .5 mile run
Heres my workout on 12/25/2011 Christmas morning.

Athlete Profile

Justin Stewart
Age:24
Springfield, IL
Occupation: P.E., Health & Drivers Ed Instructor, Head XC and Track coach

5'10"
155 lbs

Running PR's
400m 48.9
600m 1:20.2
800m 1:53
Mile 4:19
2 Mile 9:47
3 Mile 15:09
5k 15:52
10k 34:34
1/2 Marathon 1:17

Stair Climb Records
*Check out my previous blog on my past races in 2011

2012 Racing Season/Schedule

2012 Stair Climbing Racing Season

Dec. 11th      300 Lasalle Tower Chicago IL
Jan. 21st        Bop to the Top Indianaplois IN
Jan. 29th        AON Tower Chicago, IL
Feb. 8th         Empire State Building Run Up New York, NY
Feb. 12th       Oakbrook Terrace Tower Chicago, IL
Feb. 18th       Hilton Springfield, IL
Feb. 26th       John Hancock Building Chicago, IL
Mar. 11th      Presidential Towers Chicago, IL
Sept. 24th     U.S. Bank Tower Los Angeles, CA
Nov. 4th       Sears/Willis Tower Chicago, IL
Nov. 15th     U.S. Bank Building Milwaukee, WI
Dec. 5th        Bogota, Columbia


2012 Road Racing Season


Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon
River to River Relay Race
Illinois Half Marathon
Scholastic Challenge 5k
Sizzling Mile
St. Louis Track Series (400m, 800m, 1500, 3000)
Illinois Parade Run 2 Mile
Abes Amble 10k

*Now that the 2011 racing season has come to an end its time to start thinking about the 2012 racing season.  In these sports there really is no off season.  Constantly doing some sort of training whether its building a base, peaking, tapering, etc. I am constantly training in some way or fashion.  Before stair climbing I only focused on running.  Now that there are two sports to think about now it has become harder to plan out how I want to train and how I want to approach certain races.  I run into the problem of specificity training.  If I focus on running it partially takes away from my stair racing performances. If I focus on stair training only it partially takes away from my road racing.  Since this is the case I have to take an even ground on staying all around fit, so if I wanted to road race I can be competitive, if I stair climbed I can be competitive, if I hopped in a cycling race I could also compete as well.  So far with this approach I have seen positive results.  My training is composed of a wide range of activities, one focused on more than others depending on what of the season I am in.  A lot of running, cycling, stairs, plyos, and lifting.

4 Days Till the 2011 Willis Tower Stair Climb



 

Willis Tower
103 Floors



I thought I would share a little bit of what I've been doing in order of getting ready for this years Willis Tower Sky Run stair climbing race on Sunday November 6th 2012.  Since I just got into the sport of stair climbing this year this will my race of this magnitude.  Ive donesom smaller more local stair races and Ive performed well in each of them but this race brings something different to table.  It takes a lot more effort in getting prepared for a race of this length and copetition.  

In order to get prepared for this race I have incorporated alot more endurance type of climbs at the Hilton tower here in Springfield.  Instead of doing faster paced climbs of only 3-4 intervals up, I did slower paced intervals of 7-9 x's up w/ shorter rests.  I also increased  the amount of bike rides Ive gone on lately.  Longer, more threshold type of rides, as well as some interval sprint training.  I have also kept with running 3 times a week, usually 3-5 miles each time.  In the past couple of months I have also started using a workou macine called the Jacobs Ladder usually once a week.  I have also stuck to lifing and plyos as well.    

I know it only my first year racing on the stair climbing scene but I feel I have learned alot since this past Feburary when I had my first race.  Training for stair races isnt like running or biking in terms of training everyday.  In running or biking, overall, the way you get better is to run or bike almost everyday, granted mixing up your workouts from day to day.  Yet with stair climbing if you did stairs everyday you would get bored and it would ware on you after time.  So you have to be creative when mixing up workouts that will unltimately make you better in the stair case.  Cycling, running, lifting, and plyos all have an ingredient in them that transfer over to climbing stairs.  I have found that mixing up my training with one of these activities each day has significantly improved my efforts in the stairs.  When climing the stairs you use a wide range up muscles and you have to train each of these groups.  When mixing up your training and doing workouts that use varied muscle groups all caters to making you better in the stairs.

So in regards to this up coming stair climb at the Willis Tower, I feel my training these past several months has set me up for a great race.  My goal is to after the record which is 13:09 setby a German by the name of Matthais Jahn back in 2009.  In order to do this I have to set a vigorous pce and stay there for 103 floors.  My training has set me up to do this.  All I have to do now is go out there and do it.  

Jacobs Ladder

In getting ready for my upcoming stair races I have started to incorporate a workout machine called the Jacobs Ladder.  I found out about this piece of equipment through some of the other stair climbers in the area and they told me I had to try it.  So I did, and I fell in love with it.  The basic idea of it to climb up this rotating ladder with rungs at a 45 degree angle.  Its a little awkward at first, it burns, it hurts, but it does the job and gives you a great workout, especially for stair climbers.  Check it out.

9/29/11 @ Body Quest Fitness Store

2011 Road Racing Season

This season was kind of up in the air for me.  I was going to put in some miles and get some quality workouts in but nothing too serious or over the top.  So with that said my race results speak for themselves in comparison to past years results in these races when I was in top form.  I only put in about 20-30 miles a week, never really ever building a base.  My efforts in these races were 100%, no doubt about it, but my fitness level was only taking me to finishing places like 3rd through 5th, just couldn't quite get over the hump to finish in the top spot.  Overall, with what I put into the season training wise the 2011 racing season was a success.  With my new found passion for stairs I found myself playing a balancing act between the two.

April 2, 2011
Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon
4th Place 1:17:02

Usually for this race the weather is very unpredictable but in our case this year it worked out very well with some great cool weather.  I figured I'd be good running just under 6 minute pace and where did I find myself at mile 1-5:20.  After that I just settled in to a good pace and pushed through to a 4th place finish.  Not too bad for my first 1/2, which mind you was very very hilly.  This race was also coming off a good opener in the stair climbing season so my training for this was a mixture of stair training and 1/2 marathon training.  So I found myself incorporating my long 10-12 mile runs on Saturday with stairs on Sunday, which became hard to do.


May 18, 2011
Scholastic Challenge 5k
3rd Place 16:30

This another fun race with a wide range of age groupers showing up.  This race is a fundraiser race for all the area high schools; all the entry fees go to a specified area high school.  So naturally a lot of high schoolers show up for this race making things fast, usually.  The race went out slower than other years and I think it worked to my advantage.  Usually this race goes out in under 5min. but this year we went out in a comfortable 5:20.  I finished up 3rd behind two very good collegiate runners.

August 11, 2011
State Fair 2mile Parade Run
5th Place, 10:10

This race is by far one of my favorites every year.  Its a competitive 2 mile out and back road race that is very fast every year with temperatures in the upper 90's.  I take this race very seriously every year and want to be in top form.  Yet this year I found myself falling behind in my running training because of work.  I just didn't have the time and energy to get the miles and workouts in that I wanted and needed to do to be up with the best in this race.  None the less I ran a solid 10:10 and ran with the top group for the opening mile and just feel off a bit.





August 21, 2011
Abe's Amble 10k
4th Place, 34:34


Well its been a while since I've competed in this race, as in the last year I ran was back when I was 14 years old and finished in just over 40 minutes.  This year was a different story; I was out to finish in the top 3.  Again my training continued to struggle with work but I just decided to let my God given talents take over and just go for it.  This course is considered the hardest 10k course in the Midwest and the last 5k is torture.  I just muscled through the last 5k and found myself in 3rd with a mile to go.  It wasn't until a good friend of mine passed me in the last mile pushing me back to 4th.  I was exhausted of energy and my body was shutting down that last mile.  Yet it was another fun race that really tested me mentally.


Overall, it was another great season of running.  I had a lot of fun competing and trying to balance out my training with a new found passion for stair climbing.  These two sports really go hand in hand with each other though.  As for now, I think I want to focus on stairs and see where it can take me while still holding on to my first love which is running.