I’ve been at the top of the building for several minutes having just finished the climb. As others ask my time I point to my watch, 11:37. I’m ecstatic. Problem is, it’s not true. I’m not lying, I’m just not all there mentally. In the recesses of my brain something is telling me something is wrong but I can’t figure it out. I look again at my Garmin to confirm my time. It’s 11:40. How can that be? My watch must be broken. Then reality sets in. My watch reverted to the time of day. Or maybe I thought I started it at the start but didn’t. I’m embarrassed. I just told several the wrong time, not intentionally. So goes my first U.S. Bank climb.
It all began June 30th, after the T to T June 30th climb in Atlanta. I did 72 floors at 11:37. On June 3rd I captured third in my age group at the WTC climb, 102 floors. With intense training I could improve on those times. The U.S. Bank at 75 floors is one my strengths. Shorter climbs I don’t do so well. So, over the course of three months I climbed a total of 4,640 floors, typically my 13-floor training building at 10 to 20 repeats. Never missed a training session. Stairs or hill climbs were three times a week with 4 to 6 mile runs the other days. Changed my diet to whole grain pasta which I hate. Still I’m losing weight. Added protein drinks. Almost never took a day off. If I don’t run or climb my sleep suffers. No days off is red flag #1.
I take what I thought was the best route from Cleveland, Ohio to L.A., 2,345 miles. I chose a flight that went to Washington DC then Atlanta for a flight time of 6.5 hours (direct is 4 hours, 20 minutes). Red flag #2.
Race day I am ready to leave at 10 a.m. for an 11 a.m. start. I want to get there early to meet some FB friends for the first time. I do a quick check and head out the hotel room. Everything is swirling. I am so dizzy I reach for the nearest wall. I walk along the wall back to my room. I now am confronted with a crazy problem…I can’t get to a race climbing a 75-floor building because I can’t walk to it. It’s funny and tragic at the same time. Red flag #3. I drink lots of water and practice deep breathing. Five minutes later I am at the registration table. I meet some other climbers and get in line. The line enters the building, heads up one long flight of stairs and back down where it started. It then snakes its way to the official starting line. The wait in line is noisy and seems to go on forever (about 20 minutes). Some video guy wants to interview me but I decline. I just want to focus on the race.
It’s my time to go. I was warned about the changing stairwell. It seemed to go left then right then back again. I soon as I got a rhythm I ran into a straight-away. It felt as though I was starting and stopping the race over and over. It seemed like there was as many straight a way’s as there were floors. Then I realized I couldn’t seem to get my breathing going. The air was so dry I had a hard time swallowing. I started doing something I never do…look for floor numbers. My strength is longer races with a second wind at the 50th floor. On this day it didn’t kick in. It felt as though I entered a race with no preparation. Finally, it was over. I remember checking my Garmin and seeing 18:18 and felt a great disappointment. Then I recall looking again and thinking the first number was wrong, it way really 11:37. I grabbed some water to fight off the climbing hack I developed.
What did I learn from the race. First, get there a day early if going cross country. Not sure what the dizzy spell was due to but never had it happen before. Maybe dehydration and flight fatigue of 6.5 hours in the air. Second, overtraining is as bad or worse as undertraining. Rarely taking a day off makes no sense. Third, you can’t have a PR every time. Sometimes the stars don’t align. The day after I returned I did a 5-mile run which felt effortless at 9:40 min miles. An easy run is supposed to be 10 to 11 minutes. So, the fourth is a bit controversial. I’m not going to do a taper. Ten days before the race I slowly backed off training to hardly any work the days before the race. On race day I felt completely out of sync. It was as if my body forgot how to climb. So, for Willis this November I am going to go with a one- or two-day taper. I am going to train hard two days before the race and rest completely the day before.
Jeffclimbs2801 