Per request from my dad (and fellow Hustler) I’m posting an update to our winter in Chicago adventure.
My biggest concern going out to Chicago in February was not the race as much as how cold I was sure it would be. The weekend did not start off well when my Thursday night flight was cancelled due to snow. A quick aside here: this was the fourth or fifth time in a row that my flight to Chicago in February had been cancelled and I wasn’t sure I was really meant to ever make it out there in February. When I finally got to Chicago Friday morning it was overcast with some snow. As my dad and I were walking out of the el station, we saw the Hancock building, surrounded by so much fog that you couldn’t see the top.
Saturday night we went to a reception at the restaurant at the top of the Hancock building. My sister pointed out buildings on the ground that were 20 or 30 floors high and looked tiny from where we were. That’s when I started worrying about the race. Living in the DC area where skyscrapers don’t exist, I did all my training in a 13 floor/300 stair stairwell. The Hancock is 92 floors/1632 stairs.
For some perspective, the tower in the bottom left of the photo to the left is the Old Water Tower. It is one of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It was the tallest building in the area, standing 154 feet tall. The roof of the Hancock is 1127 feet.
Sunday morning we all woke up and headed over to the Hancock Building. I ended up pulling a fairly early wave time, while my dad was placed in one of the last waves. My sister ran somewhere and grabbed me a sandwich since I can hardly walk in a straight line in the morning without food, never mind run up a skyscraper. I ate breakfast and lined up for my wave. I had read that the first third is usually the hardest and I’m glad I had heard that before that morning. Eventually my legs got used to climbing, I started to forget how many flights I had climbed, and the race was going pretty well. Around the 68th floor I started to have trouble getting enough air. The air in the stairwell is already very dry and dusty, and I did most of my training doing short sprints on 300 steps at a time and weightlifting. Next time I run, I’ll make sure to work on my lung capacity. I grabbed a bottle of water, but my mouth was too dry and I was breathing too hard to actually drink. I started taking the stairs one at a time to recover a little. Around the 82nd floor I got my breathing back under control and was able to take the stairs two at a time for the rest of the race. I finished in 17:25 (31/387 in my age group). After trying to pace around the crowded observation deck to cool off, I was finally able to chug a few bottles of water, then wait for my dad’s wave to start.
I don’t know much about the details of his race, except that he single stepped most of the way up. He finished (without medical assistance :-P) in 28:43 (200/240 in his age group, but well ahead of the 1:13:18 of the last finisher).
My sister being the lazy one she is was our pack mule and in charge of running around for food. I’m still working on convincing her to run Sears Tower with my this fall…
