Look who’s doing a race report! It was been a loooonng time since I’ve done a proper race event (pre-Covid was last one).
Background
Local friend of mine has been doing the Hancock climb every year with his kids, since he and his family have asthma and this benefits Respiratory Health charities. I liked the idea of having an event on the calendar to provide a little motivation on training. I’ve never done one of these before. Since we didn’t register together, our start times were 5 hours apart so I actually never saw him yesterday.
I mentioned last week that I’ve been doing some training for this but not tons. I started doing incline treadmill in January and finally got access to a gym with stair master at the start of February. I put in 4 or 5 stairmaster sessions. It was surprising to me that I never got muscle soreness after my first session and that I was able to go at a pace that filled up most of the LED bars with an effort that was decent but far from all out. This at least gave me confidence that finishing 94 floors wasn’t going to be a fitness problem. Cycling seemed to be great prep for this type of event.
Race day
Unlike a 5K or 10K, people start one at a time. You’re assigned a time wave and then they line people up and start every 15 seconds. Another friend with experience doing this said that it gets loud in the stairwell, so he recommended earbuds and most people were doing this. It was good nostalgia to have the race day jitters and bust out the race day socks and playlist. I brought with me a flipbelt for phone and earbuds.
My friend who’s a vet at this echo’d the tips on using the railing as much as possible. Both of the people who’ve done this before said that it’s really easy to flame out at the start so pacing would be important.
My start time wave was 2:30pm. Had some New Order queued up and we’re off. It’s an emergency stairwell that you’re climbing from a building built in the 60’s. Not the best lighting, but wide enough for two people to easily go side by side. I quickly discovered that most slower people stayed to the right, so it wasn’t problematic passing people. My throat was horribly dry so I grabbed a water bottle at the 10th floor and chugged that over the next two floors. That was the only time I wasn’t using the rail. The first 25 floors-ish I was doing a lot of two stepping. Around 25 or 30, I got boxed in for a flight so I was back to single step which was a good wake up call to reign things in.
Floors 30-55 I was just doing a high cadence single step and trying to enjoy the moment. Lots of staff were there on most floors with water, cameras, cheering etc. Things were going by quickly and you’re not really focusing on the floor #. At 50 or 51, I checked my time and it was 8 min and change. My friend did 16 minutes prior year, so I knew I was not far off from a good pace. I wasn’t gassed at all and knew I had more in the tank. (unlike 5k where I’d be cursing myself at the halfway point about why do I do this to myself).
I started to sprinkle in more 2 steps in the second half. The building floors changed from being 2 flights of 7-8 steps to being 1 flight of 5 steps followed by 8 steps. Each floor was definitely easier in the second half which helped me find a rhythm. Never running/jogging. Just brisk walk type effort. Around floor 80 I started two stepping where possible and never got to the brink of out of breath until the 92nd floor so it was a real quick visit to the pain cave. I had a BMF type mantra going through my head those last 15 flights. Finished at the 94th floor.
Time: 14:17
Overall: 21/1723
AG: 2/182
So it was pretty cool to do a race type of event after 4 years. I obviously do a lot of cycling, but the events there tend to be more endurance, “let’s chat while riding” events than a proper race. I was bummed that my friend had such widely different start times as I didn’t get to meet up with anyone after (wife had a lunch commitment). My friend finished in 15:37. Nonetheless, it was still satisfying for first go at this event.
Results
Only regret was that I brought the earbuds that I didn’t know how to fast forward tracks. I was hoping for some Slayer around floor 75, but instead I was still grooving to Handsome Furs. Next year.
