So check this out.  Finishing the Incline at Manitou Springs nearly two months ago was one of my favorite experiences of 2019.  As fun as it was, my desire to do it again and crush my finishing time has been on my mind several times a day since. 

If you’re not familiar with the Manitou Springs Incline, you can read my post about my first experience.  (You can click here for more information from a  Colorado tourism web page.)  Short explanation, it’s a short trail with 2,768 stairs in the mountains.  Think about climbing the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building….twice!

I knew little about the Incline prior to my first adventure.  I heard about it word of mouth and saw a picture.  I didn’t read up or prepare the first time around, I just showed up….with one bottle of water and warmer weather than expecting.  From that moment, I wanted to complete it a second time in less than 40 minutes.  My first attempt was finished at 48:29.

Breaking 40 was the plan, until I had this idea of a stretch goal.  I am fascinated by professional athletes discussing their workout routines on podcasts.  Enter Terence Crawford, the welterweight boxing champion of the world.  His workout includes a once a week trip to the top of this staircase in 34 to 35 minutes.  I happened to catch this on The Joe Rogan Experience two days before my second climb.  So yup, 35 minutes became my stretch goal. There is something about competing against an elite athlete who is also only 31 years old…well, compete against him in my own brain anyways.  In my head, his cardio has to be amazing to compete in 12-round boxing matches.  This would be a great way to measure my cardio.  Rachel decided to partake in this hike; however, we split up at the beginning so I could chase my goal.

I show up in Manitou right at 9:00AM, driving into the area that morning.  Realization that I did not allow any time to adjust to the altitude clicked in as I exited my car.  I also realized that its 75 degrees already.  Ouch.  Not looking good.  But I did bring much more water with me.

A steady pace would be important so that I did not exhaust myself.  I did the math to determine that I’d need to climb 80 stairs per minute to hit 35 minutes.  And WOW, this was really easy….till about the 700^th stair.  I was already feeling a bit gassed, but I was also really hot.  My heart rate was at 154 BPM.  (To put that into perspective, I’d need to run at a 7 minute/mile pace for 4-5 minutes straight to get my heart rate that high). I drank extra water and took my shirt off to cool down just a bit.  My pace started fading around 1,200 steps.  I was able to determine that I could still break 40 minutes around step 1,800.  I was able to achieve this by taking 25 steps at a brisk pace and 10 steps at a slower pace.  These intervals pushed me down to 38 minutes, 23 seconds.

The experience of climbing with other runners was a nice, extra touch.  The Pike’s Peak Ascent Marathon was held 2 days after my climb which brought many extra athletes to town.  I gotta give props to anyone who did the Incline that Friday and then ran in the Ascent on Sunday.  You have a lot of confidence in yourself to even want to pull that off.  Hats off to all of you!

Guess what?  I am going to break 35 minutes.  I’m going to do it within 2 more attempts.  I’m not sure when I’ll have time to get back out there, but I only need two more tries. 

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to do the Incline a year ago.  My back was in too much pain.  My quads and glutes did not have the strength they do now.  My hips were frequently sore and had not been through countless hours of rehab yet.  I was not yet utilizing DDP Yoga as part of my comeback and had very few cryotherapy sessions behind me.  Being able to do the Incline was out of reach and now it is the reward for all of my hard work.  Looking towards an accomplishment like that puts my mind in a more positive position.  Changing my attitude to be more positive has been critical in my injury recovery.  I’m not letting that accident bring me down; instead I am using this to become stronger than I have ever been and accomplish goals that I have not yet ever achieved. 

Future 35 Minute Incline Beast