Oh yes! The Seattle Stairway Foot Tour is one FUN event.
Normally I prefer to run in the dirt but when someone puts this much time into curating a route and incorporates lots of green spaces and the company is this good I make an exception. Plus I like stairs. I believe it was conceived of by Michael Yadrick (who I will henceforth regard as THE Seattle Stairway Authority) and I think this was the third annual edition. To sum it up, this is a running tour of ALL the 100+ step stairways in the Seattle area.
I know, mind blown! We live in a hilly town.
Last year I wanted to participate but injuries prevented me. This year I wasn't 100% but gave it a shot anyway. I lasted 29 miles and will definitely be back in 2016 to do the whole thing. It was awesome. Did I mention that the route gets tweaked/improved each year? Nice.
This event is run (literally and figuratively) on or near the longest day of the year because it takes a heck of a long day to complete! It starts promptly at sunrise (5:11 AM this year) and ends when you finish which for those that toughed it out this year was freaking 10:45 PM. Boom!
On this day Michael's family provided mobile support and so the runners were met roughly every 15 miles by a van full of food and fruit and drinks – amazing! Since I knew I was not going to last the whole way I loaded up on my favorite Hammer Nutrition products, put some water in my pack and was pretty self-sufficient. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some of the icy cold watermelon that was available…
The pace was very leisurely. We probably ran between 8:00-9:00 pace while we connected the stairs and we always waited for the group to reform and we took lots of pictures. Naturally there were plenty of bathroom stops as well and later on there were plenty of food/coffee/drink stops too. No worries. Most of the stairs were walked by the group but I did run my fair share. In part because I felt really good (aside from my injury) and because I knew I didn't need to save myself for the last 30 miles.
The run started no more than 100' from the first flight of stairs in SW Seattle and luckily we didn't have to go up each one to count it, down was also good enough. So the run went something like this.
- run to a flight of stairs
- take a quick picture
- run/walk up the steps
- remark how cool that particular flight was
- run to the next flight
- take a quick picture
- run down
- repeat
There were some very fun ups, like this one that started as a super steep sidewalk.
And this down that twists and turns.
There are too many pictures to post them all but here is one that puts this event into perspective, it's the total route. Wow!
Congratulations to Steven Kent and a couple of others that ran the whole thing.
This event also got a mention in the Ultra Runner Podcast!
Here are all my pictures and video.
| Sleep | 5 |
| Waking HR | |
| Body Weight | |
| Body Fat | |
| Breakfast | nothing |
| Lunch | |
| Dinner | |
| Nutrition | 3 large Water Bottles, each w/2 scoops Perpetuem and 2 Endurolytes, Hammer Bar, Omnibar, watermelon, water |
| Recovery | |
| Injuries | |
| Therapy | |
| Time of Day | 5:11 AM |
| Workout Type | long, fun run |
| Weather | 60 to start, upper 70s by the time I pulled out |
| Course | |
| Results | Fun! |
| Time | |
| Distance | |
| Pace | |
| Equipment | Hoka Stinson Trail, Ultimate Direction SJ Ultra Vest 2.0 |
| Clothing | Injinji Trail 2.0 Midweight Mini-Crew, Brooks Infinity Short III, Brooks Podium SS shirt, Hammer Nutrition JackRabbit visor |
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