Life from Running to Stairs

Stairsmaster, Stairman, OMG…these are the few names which I have been given to me in the last few months after people saw a transformation in my body. And it is quite obvious because now I am a completely changed person internally and externally, thanks to my training which included running, stairs climbing, Abs, SuryaNamaskars and Kick Boxing. I don’t know how I got addicted to these but these are entirely my inclusions.

So, how I started? I have been running for a long time but with no focus on timing; however, I always thought improving my timing. In one of the many articles, I read stairs climbing as one of the core training of all successful runners. Meanwhile, Sharad, an IT entrepreneur and my running fellow did few sessions of stairs in his building which inspired me to do stairs in my building but I found it boring, may be due to non-circulation of air and closed four walls. Parsik Hill was one place where I remembered one small patch of stairs (110 stairs oneway). Next day, I ran to Parsik Hill (PH) and did 1,100 stairs (5 times of stairs run cum jog, 220 stairs up and down). It was an amazing experience for me though I was tired too. In my next run to PH, I did 7 times of repetitions completing 1,500 stairs which went to 3,300 stairs in next two sessions. Meanwhile I realized that I started feeling light due to stairs and my calves were becoming stronger. This made me to include stairs as my permanent training plan. So, instead of mixing running with stairs, I focused on doing stairs only. I landed on PH with my loads of carbohydrates, water  and other stuffs and did my first dedicated stairs jog and ended up doing 5,500 stairs in 1:10 hrs. My other core plans like SuryaNamaskars, Abs, Plank etc were on. I increased my stairs count from 5,500 to 8,000 to 11,111 and then 15,555 stairs in a span of one month. Yes, initially I felt tired but later on, it was perfectly fine except on the day when I did 15,555 stairs, my feets were paining. On an average, I did 5,500 stairs an hour.

These trainings helped me a lot; first, it gave me a discipline and direction how to target and achieve it and at the same time, it made my body strong, rather I would say super strong. I accomplished my sub 2 target of completing ADHM 2014 in 1:53 hrs followed by Emidar Navi Marathon Half Marathon in 1:50 hrs. Because of these trainings which included stairs, I finished Bangalore Ultra (50 km) in a reasonable time (5:40 mins). Believe me, I never ran beyond 21 km but I ended up doing 50 km without any hassles. Yes the last 10 km was tough but I managed to finish strongly. Recently I participated in Stairs Everest Challenge organized by Skyscraper Dash where we had to run 43 times up and 42 times down of Kohinoor Square (52 floors), Dadar equivalent to 106,500 stairs in a team of 6. We ended up doing 109,000 stairs where I contributed 18,750 stairs and rest by my team members. We took an average time of 3:00 hours and beat Bangalore record by a cool 13 mins.

I read a lot of articles on stairs and kick boxing and read few histories of some of the great runners of the world. Two things were common in all – Stairs running/Hill running and Boxing/Kick Boxing which are part of my training plans currently.

I strongly recommend all runners to include stairs, abs and other core exercises in their training plans which will definitely improve their running pace.

My life changed very fast in the last two years, especially in the last one year; everything looked positive to me, personally met so many wonderful and determined people, most of them runners of different ages but in different professions. I am blessed that I am surrounded by positive people, friends and bosses who always supported me in my dreams. God bless everyone!

Happy stepping!