Big Wild Goose Pagoda

The day after the Hash run, Matt and I went downtown to go shopping.  He was looking for shoes.  (We didn't find any and they were all ridiculously overpriced but that is neither here nor there.) The mall that we went to is very near the "Big Wild Goose Pagoda." Here is a picture of it from the second story of the mall. 

 It was originally built in A.D. 652 and it only had five stories.  Later it was rebuilt to have seven stories and it is 64.5 meters high.  Because we were so close, we decided to go see it. It is located in the Great Ci'en Temple.

This is a picture that I took once we were inside the walls. There were lots of other little buildings around, and we spent a good bit of time peering into each of them.  

Eventually we decided to climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It's only 7 stories high so I didn't even think twice about climbing it.  There were also stairs leading up to it and all around the entire area but  nothing too challenging.  I took some pictures from the top.

Nice view and it was a pretty clear day as well.  Very often the pollution here is pretty bad.  Anyway, according to my fitbit, we did 22 floors that day.  That isn't a lot.  Lately, however, I have been lucky if I can get in 4 or 6.  It's pretty flat here so I really haven't been doing any stairs at all. A lot of walking but not a lot of stairs.  

The next day my quadricep muscles were killing me.  Going upstairs was painful but going downstairs was really bad.  I guess the combination of not doing any stairs for a while and then doing 22 pretty much all at once was not a good idea.  It was about 3 days before my quads quieted down.  

At the time, this really wasn't a huge problem. I wasn't "training" for anything so I wasn't trying to keep to any schedule.  I just didn't run for 3 days and then on the fourth day I managed a run.  Also, the farthest I had been running here is about 7.5 miles.  Usually I do around 4-6 when I go out.  

Recently, we looked into the Great Wall Marathon.  It's held in May and it is said to be one of the toughest in the world.  With that in mind, we were looking at doing the "half marathon" distance.  I didn't hear back from the people running it and then eventually they said they were full to local expats but they would put us on the waiting list if someone cancelled.  I promptly put it out of my mind and figured that it was probably for the best.  

About a week and a half ago, we heard back that we got in. Which is great, except that the half marathon elevation map looks like this:

The huge peak on the map is entirely stairs.  And that big drop is more stairs down.  (I'm pretty sure that the down was what really caused the pain more than the up.)

On the website they bill it as "5,164 steps into history." Now I am assuming that the "5164 steps" are for the full marathon.  If you look at the full marathon elevation map, it starts the same but then they finish by doing the huge peak again from the other direction.  (No thank you ;)

The point of this I guess is that if my legs were screaming from Big Wild Goose Pagoda, I just may be in a little bit of trouble here if I am going to attempt to do the Great Wall Marathon by May.  Still, it looks freaking amazing.  I can't not do it.  But even if I am just walking this... we are still talking about 2,582 steps.  

With that in mind, I  walked up and down the ten floors to my apartment.  I didn't notice anything so that was good.  I was out of breath going up but not a big deal and my muscles were fine the next day.    Since the stairs are all at the beginning of the route, I decided to try doing stairs before my next run so I ran/walked up the stairs in my building from my apartment on the 10th floor, to the top. This was 22 floors up and then 32 floors down.  Then I ran 4 miles in the park.  My legs were really heavy for the first 1.5 miles but then they were ok so when I got back, I ran/walked the 10 flights up to my apartment.  So in all 32 flights up and 32 down plus a 4 mile run.

The next morning my calves were stiff but not too bad.  In the afternoon I walked a mile to the store and a mile back and had no problems.  By the afternoon it was a bit worse, and by nightfall, my calves were positively screamy! Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to do the whole building in one go but I don't have a ton of time here.  

Each flight has 18 stairs so the 32 flights equal 576 stairs each way for a total of 1,152.  If I can manage to do this twice for 64 flights up and 64 down I will be at 2,304.  I would need to go all the way up and all the way down twice plus 15 more floors to get to 2,582.  Good times!!

Anyway, it is now 5 days later and I am still feeling my calves but not a big deal. Afterwards, I took two days off and then went running again on the third day with no problems.  I will probably try again mid week.  Wish me luck, because I am going to need it!