Believe in yourself

When you run up the stairs of a tower as fast as you can you feel totally spent at the top. It's a great feeling to be able to give everything you have and enjoy the view at the top while walking around. Then someone else comes in 45 seconds faster and you wonder how you could ever do better. In this case I'm talking about the 47 floor US Bank building in Milwaukee.

The first year I did it in 2015 I went up in 5:53. The winner went up in 5:35. I was second in my first stair race. It turns out I am built well for stair races and my background of running, cycling and swimming are helpful. I also relax when racing and this helps to keep from going out too hard.

At the time, going another 20 seconds or so faster seemed insurmountable at first. Yet I believed I could do it somehow. The next year I went up in 5:50 for third place and then 6 months later I went up in 5:45 for third again. I had improved but not by much and I was settled in to this time range it seemed.

Yet I still believed I could do anything up those stairs. Guys were running 5:00 flat and they put their pants on one leg at a time like me. So why couldn't I go faster?

I changed a lot in my training since the 5:45 time in spring 2017. I started doing indoor biking on my own bike with a fancy app and smart trainer. I started doing regular track workouts to train for a 5k. And I started doing regular pullups, pushups and dips. These three things made a significant difference and I won the November climb up the US Bank building in 5:19. I was lighter on my feet and didn't tire.

I didn't consciously make the aforementioned changes specifically for stair climbing. They happened to help though.

The take away is to always believe in yourself. Never sell yourself short. I seemed destined to always finish around the 5:50 range and then all of a sudden I had a break through to 5:19 because I tried new things. I tried new things because I believe in myself. I know we are all human including the people who are much faster than us. We can become that guy, the fast guy who wows people. You can't be wowed though. You have to realize what the fast guy or gal did and see there's a way.

Most top level stair climbers came into the sport pretty fast already. You need a solid base to be really fast up stairs. Build the base first. Don't do the speciality training and expect that to make a huge difference. That's icing on the cake. You need the fundamental power, V02 max and relaxed meditative confident spirit first. You see an elite climber doing speciality stair training and think, "That's what I need to do." But you don't see that he got fast in the first place by running and cycling. It's better to build the base than spend a bunch of time doing speciality stair training. If a guy got fast by running in college, high school and middle school for 10
years, you need to simulate that. Doing speciality stair training won't. This is evidenced by me and another Milwaukee climber who do almost no stair specific training and yet are winning stair races. Stair specific training is icing on the cake. Get a base in cycling to see huge gains. Do intelligent running track workouts. Become more relaxed. Those are what make the big gains.

My first bike race - WI State Road Championship -- Spring Prairie Road

I had wanted to do a bike race since summer of 2013. I got my first road bike in spring 2013 and made progress with the help of STRAVA. On STRAVA I followed local riders who were racers. I saw the races and group rides they were doing and was very intrigued. But I had to learn quite a bit to get to their level. I had to learn more about bike maintenance. I did several duathlons in 2013 which have some parts of bike racing in them like just going fast for a certain period of time. The duathlons I did did not have group riding mechanics though.

2013 came and went. I got a new carbon Cannondale bike for 2014 and broke it in. I decided I would do Ganther Race the Lake and the Crooked Path ride in the fall. Otherwise I kept my schedule open for bike races. I told my therapist about the Wheel and Sprocket group ride on Thursdays and she said it would be good to do. I did that and hung on so was encouraged and enlivened.

Then the day before the road race, someone on STRAVA posted about it. They had done a training ride up Lapham Peak in preparation. This was the first I heard about the road race. A road race was the perfect way to start my racing career. Lots of races around here are Criteriums where you go around a short lap many times. Cornering is key and I don't corner well yet. I can corner at slow speeds but not over 20 mph. I decided to do this road race on 1 day's notice. It's a 6.5 mile loop 6 times for the group I would be in which was Cat 4/5.

I drove there with my bike on my rack and registered on the spot. I put the bib on the back of my jersey. Later an official redid this for me because I guess it was backwards. We sat in the corral for several minutes until it was time to roll out. We all rode in a neutral manner till the start line and then the race officially began.

I didn't warm up enough. I know from doing many running races that warming up is huge. It settles you down and grounds you. It helps you remember what's important for the actual race like relaxing and going at a pace good for you. I only did a few blocks of riding before.

For the first 4 miles I hung with the lead group. I got behind them by about 100 meters coming into a long downhill tailwind section where you could really fly. I realized I was behind this group as did other guys. So I tried to catch them. I went 98% for about a mile to try and catch them. I came close and then exploded and realized I couldn't keep going this fast. I fell back all the way to stragglers behind a couple other split off groups. This was a big mistake but I learned my lesson and started riding intelligently then.

I found a couple small groups of 1 to 3 guys to ride with the rest of the race. The final part of each lap is a very steep hill. The finish line is about 100 meters after the top of the hill. A group of 4 who had worked together came to this hill. We all knew it came down to this. It was a mini race of 4 people. I started first on the hill but couldn't dig deep enough to keep my initial surge going. One guy roared past and kept the surge. He had it won between us 4. Then another guy went ahead. This guy I had ridden with a lot and he would always pass me in the beginning of the climbs and then I'd catch him later. Well this happened again. He got out of the saddle and grinded up more while I stayed seated and spun more. I passed him and checked back near the top of the hill to see if he was coming back. He wasn't and it showed on his face. I kept up the pace through the finish line and congratulated the guy who roared up first on a great finish. Later STRAVA told me we had ridden together and I gave him kudos.

STRAVA is a great tool for cyclists especially if you are in a hotbed area of cycling. You can make up so much ground by seeing what other cyclists are doing. Other great tools are your local bike shops and the internet in general.

Click the results and search(ctrl-f) for Bruss to see my results. I can't wait for this race next year. I hope to do more races also. Here's a video of me finishing too. You can see the guy who roared up and me passing the guy standing.

Results

Video go to 6:47 i'm in the green jersey