(no subject)

[camwyn]

Yesterday's training: go to first level of basement, stretch, climb to 24, go back down. I think I'm getting better at it; the urge to spit didn't start until around floor 10 or so, and I managed to avoid pausing for a few seconds of breath until I got to maybe 14. Floor 16 was where I had to start telling myself "see? Only X number of floors to go! You can do it!". And if nothing else, I have beaten Peter Venmkan; the desire to throw up no longer seems to be in the picture, even on floor 20. Walk into a wall head first, sure, but throw up, no. I did some staggering when I got to 24, though, and had to lean against one of the walls in the 'stretching my calves, really' pose until my breath calmed down. Today may be a day for just doing 24 floors again to make sure I can repeat the experience without hyperventilating or something, rather than adding four more.

There is an odd disconnect in my brain between the distance being climbed and the effort involved. I look at 24 floors and I know it is a distance that causes my very eyebrows to sweat with effort, but there is still that part of me which insists on doing the math and saying 'oh, it's three hundred fifty feet traveled total, don't be such a baby'. I'd kind of like to drown that part. That or force it to sit down with Lance Armstrong after Lance ran the NY Marathon the first time. As I recall, the man who kicked the Tour de France's butt so thoroughly that the Tour couldn't sit down for a week said that running twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty four yards was the hardest physical thing he'd ever done. Different kinds of exercise ask different things of you...

... and even now that part of my brain is jeering 'oh, yeah, suuuuuure climbing two dozen flights of stairs in an office building is worthy of comparison to marathon running, it's so haaaaaaaaard, pfft'. Oy.

Comments

[lienne.livejournal.com]

Stairs are tough! When I lived on the 28th floor I used to walk down to ground level and back up, and if I tried it at any pace faster than an amble, I'd be hauling myself grimly up the railings by the end and too wobbly to walk a straight line until I'd gone and had a drink and rested for a while.