It turns out there were a *lot* of faster climbers.
Alex flew back to Albany and trained really hard. The next year he climbed Sears in 15:13. It was a big improvement, but still slower than the best climbers.
So Alex flew back to Albany and trained really hard. The next year he climbed Sears in 14:53. It was a big improvement, but still slower than the best climbers.
Again and again, Alex traveled to Chicago and climbed up Sears Tower. His times kept dropping. 14:45…14:19… He was certainly fast, but he was still slower than the best climbers.
By then, Alex was in his early 40s. His race results were still pretty good, but the times were no longer dropping.
Then disaster stuck. The COVID pandemic shut down society. Workplaces, Schools, and even *charity races* were closed. Since there weren't any races to train for, Alex got fat... and when COVID was over, he wasn't in shape to climb. He took a year off to train.
When he finally lost some weight, he flew to Chicago to race up Sear Tower, but then he got sick and missed the climb**.
**It was probably for the best since he would've struggled to break 20 minutes.
The next year, Alex was in much better condition. He flew to Chicago to race up the Sears Tower. This time, he didn't get sick. He climbed up the building in 16:40. He was over two minutes slower than his best time. He was disappointed.
Alex flew back to Albany. He was now 48 years old and feeling discouraged. Maybe he'd never again compete with the best climbers, but he still wanted to be fast. So Alex trained and dieted and then trained some more.
A year later, it was time for Alex to fly to Chicago to climb the Sears Tower again. He was now 49 years old and it would be his 12th trip to Sears - including the time he got sick.
Here is where the story begins...
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Sears Tower. Round 12. The previous year, I was in decent shape, but my performance at Sears was underwhelming. While I expected to break 16 minutes based on my training, I ended up 40 seconds slower than my goal.
This year I was a little leaner and slightly more fit. Based on my training, I knew I should shave at least 20 seconds off my time. However, 20 seconds *still* wouldn't get me under 16 minutes if I climbed like last year.
But I came into the race more prepared. For the past year, I've been incorporating 15 minute time trials to simulate the exertion needed to climb up a tall building. While the absolute levels of my fitness didn't change much, I was better prepared to handle a longer race.
It seemed to work. I had a good race at ESBRU that was on par with many of my races pre-COVID. Heading into the race, I was pretty confident I could climb Sears well under 16 minutes. Possibly under 15 if I had a good race. But let's not count our chickens prematurely...
The week leading up to Sears was rough. I climbed up and down Cap Blanc in Quebec 29 times with my friends Napoleon, Tom, and Jill and my legs were absolutely trashed. I stupidly had a "leg" day 48 hours after Cap Blanc and I didn't feel fully recovered until Thursday. But Thursday, I had an awesome time trial. I took off Friday to rest and fly out to Chicago. In Chicago, 24 hours before the race, I did a short "shake out" climb in my 19 story hotel. It wasn't pretty. Despite using a slow 80 BPM "Sears" pace (e.g. like running at a 5K pace for a few 600m repeats) I felt super sluggish.
Unsure of my fitness, I decided to use a slightly conservative pace on the morrow: 78 BPM rather than 80 BPM which I had originally planned to go with.
I hung out with David and Jill later that day. It appeared that the competition at Sears was fairly light this year, which has been a common theme since COVID. There wouldn't be any fast international climbers and many top US climbers would be absent. That meant that if I had a good race, I might take a podium spot?
The next morning, I power-walked to Sears. Of course, it was raining**.
**Wet socks, but at least my racing shoes remained dry.
There were a lot of familiar faces at check-in including my friend Tom who drove 12 hours and slept in his car to be here.
Warm-up time. Active stretches and burpees. Then the long trek to the start line. I'm not kidding. Since the remodelling, they added a labyrinth in the 2nd level basement which serves as a "mini-museum" for the Skydeck. At least I think that's what it is - I wasn't going to leisurely browse the exhibits while jazzed up for the race.
At the start line, reality finally set in.
Like I mentioned, the competition was light this year. There were a few perennial power houses like Jason Larson and Mark Ewell, but nobody else that I knew... that is until I noticed our current US Champion - Chris Wiatr - on the start line**. Plus a couple other fast-looking climbers.
**You are probably wondering why I was surprised to see the US Champion at the race. The reason is quite simple: Chris isn't on the stair climbing circuit. He typically only does one race - Hustle up the Hancock - which just happened to be our National Championship race this year (traditionally it's been at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas). As a competitive cyclist, he is quite fast in the stairwell. It wasn't a surprise that he won at Hustle... but I was somewhat surprised to see him at Sears.
While my chances of winning just took a nosedive, I still held out hope for a podium spot, especially since Jason - my longtime rival - wasn't in top shape**.
**For a very good reason. Congrats!
I finished up my last round of burpees and lined up 4th behind Chris. The two other fast-looking guys lined up ahead of us. Potentially they had no business starting out in front, but I wasn't going to say anything (sometimes there are very fast dark-horses at these events). I assumed Jason, Mark, and Jill were behind me but I honestly was too focused on the start line to pay attention.
The organizers gave us 7 seconds between climbers and soon it was my turn.
Go!
Did I mention I broke my metronome? The battery died while climbing up Cap Blanc and it was so old that the screws were corroded and the heads stripped (as I've changed the battery many times over the years). After forcefully cracking it open, it stopped working. Luckily, I borrowed Jills Garmin which has a built-in haptic (a fancy word for vibration) metronome. Much better than any of the Apple metronome apps which turn off as soon as you move your wrist to start climbing or switch between apps (Strava, stopwatch, etc.).
I started my stop-watch and started climbing. While the Garmin metronome buzzed against my right wrist, it was faint and I regretted not having my audible Seiko metronome. Fortunately, after a few flights, I finally "felt" the beat properly and got into a 78 BPM rhythm.
Prior to the race, I worried that I'd tire out prematurely based on my disheartening "shakeout" climb the previous day. However, at this point my mind was blank. No thoughts other than keeping one foot on the landings. Sears is generally a 10/10 pattern so by purposely taking one step (rise) after each landing that meant I was taking the turns rather conservatively. Single-Double-Double-Double-Double-Single-Turn. Repeat. Far easier (but slower) than taking only double steps.
Already I was into the 20s. I might've passed one of the first two climbers? I can't remember. But I distinctly heard heavy breathing and quick steps coming from down below. It was strange. The audible footfalls had a much higher turnover rate than mine, but they weren't catching up very quickly. Then it dawned on me that they were single stepping (i.e. running) up the stairs. Mystery solved.
Slowly but surely, the climber was catching up. Finally I had visual contact in the upper 30s. Unsurprisingly, I didn't recognize them as few top climbers take single steps**.
**While I personally don't use single steps, I've been passed by a couple top Europeans using that technique, so I'm not knocking it.
I didn't panic. While this climber (which I later learned was Thomas Baker) had already put 20-30 seconds into me, I could tell by his heavy breathing that he was starting to struggle with the pace. He eventually came within a flight of my position, but slowly I started pulling away. By the time we hit the halfway point (around the 51st floor) he was no longer in sight.
I was climbing alone again as I entered the 60s. I was handling the pace fairly well, but I was starting to feel fatigued. Could I maintain this pace if I restarted the race? Probably not. Could I maintain this pace for another 6 minutes? Probably yes.
I passed another climber (which I later learned was Benjamin Mohrdieck). That meant that only Chris Wiater was ahead of me. That meant I likely sealed up 2nd place unless there was some other unknown dark horse starting further back. I didn't dwell on it as I was now in the suffer zone.
I hit the 77th floor, roughly 75% of the way to the top. I briefly peered at my watch. While I didn't get a good look, I did register the first two (minutes) digits as an 11, meaning I was still under the 12 minute mark. That meant I was on track to break 16 minutes. This didn't take a lot of mental math as my goal was ~4 minutes per quarter. Easy enough to calculate when loopy.
More importantly, I heard cheering from up ahead. It had to be the volunteers cheering for Chris as he was the only climber ahead of me. I mentally approximated how much time it took me to get to the cheering/aid station. Maybe 15 seconds? A bit more than the 7 second gap we started with... but within striking distance.
I consciously sped up after crossing into the 80s.
Here is where I noticed the advantage of using a haptic metronome. While it's annoying to get into an initial rhythm because the pulse is so faint, it also makes it easier to ignore and climb at a faster pace.
I was definitely feeling the pace, but with less than 3 minutes to go, I knew I had saved enough for a strong finish. The guard rails of my metronome were off and I climbed with urgency. Not quite a sprint... but I could feel my legs churning out the extra watts.
Into the 90s, the stairwell changed from 10/10 to 7/7/7 and I could now hear Chris up ahead. As we started with a 7 second gap, I knew I didn't need to pass him - I just needed to keep within a couple flights. But now my finishing instincts kicked in. Chris was climbing fairly well, but I managed to catch up with another surge. He stepped out of the way to let me pass right around the 96th floor (give or take a floor).
I kept up my surge on the final few floors. Tired? Yes, but I wasn't quite at my limit. 100. 101. 102. Those triple flights made it a bit harder to tolerate, but finally I was a mere three flights from the end. I could hear the cheering from the Skydeck as I climbed towards the top.
I burst through the doorway and crossed the finish line. I stopped my watch right at 15:29.
It took me a few moments to register that I had (probably**) won the race!
**As there were 2000+ participants the climb would last all morning and there was always the possibility someone faster would climb later.
I was tired, but not on-the-floor dying. I managed to stay on my feet albeit hunched over with my hands on my quads for support. By the time a few of the other racers had finished, I was walking off the fatigue.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I hung out on the Skydeck with all the other climbers. I got a chance to catch up with many other climbers on the circuit and had the opportunity to meet & chat with Chris (2nd place) and Ben (5th place).
Jill (unsurprisingly) won the women's side, but unlike me, she was on the ground for quite a long while. As winners, we got to hold up the Towerrunning Challenge poster.
Final Thoughts:
While my time this year (15:26) wasn't the best I had ever done, it was still solid and more importantly, I had lopped over a minute off of last year's mediocre performance. Catching up with Chris near the end of the race was just icing on the cake. At the very least, it gives me confidence that I can perform well at our National Championship at Hustle early next year.
As a comparison, here are my times across the years. This ranks 8th out of 11 climbs (not great) but it's not too far behind some of my "average" climbs.
2011 16:52
2012 15:13
2013 14:53
2014 14:45
2015 14:19
2016 14:21
2017 14:50**
2018 14:45**
2019 15:09**
2023: DNS (sick)
2024 16:40**
2025 15:26**
** Since 2017 we've had two extra floors (44 steps) which adds ~18 seconds, so this year's 15:26 is faster than my 15:13 time from 2013.
I'm quite pleased that I won, but let's be real. At the start of my racing career this performance wouldn't have been remotely close to a podium spot. There were so many faster climbers back then. Since COVID, however, the competition hasn't been as strong. On the positive side (?) I'm probably the oldest winner of the race which means I've benefited from the longevity of my career. There are older climbers out there who are (or who have been) faster... but every year that passes, the list seems to grow smaller.
Next year I plan to improve even further. I'd really like to crack 15 minutes and I honestly think I have the capability. If not now... then after a bit more training and proper dieting.
My pace of 78 BPM turned out to be conservative. In prior years, I used 82-85 BPM though I've bonked at the top of that range. Perhaps 80 BPM would've been optimal? I'm walking a fine line between bleeding time (too slow) and blowing up (too fast).
Grades:
Fitness: A minus - Very close to pre-COVID levels.
Weight: A minus - I'm around 171 which is a good race weight. The final goal is just below 170, though 165 would be a dream come true.
Effort: B Plus - This was a solid effort, but I could've handled a faster pace for the first 80 stories. I wasn't on the floor at the end of the race which means I had some energy.
Pacing & Technique: B Plus - 78 BPM was slightly conservative, but it delayed the suffering which tests mental fortitude. Likewise, it enabled me to save some energy so that I could pick up the pace towards the end. Other than hugging the rails and avoiding placing both feet on the landings, my technique wasn't special. I simply didn't pay much attention to my footfalls.
Overall: A minus - This was another "breakthrough" race post COVID and it gave me added confidence for a long race. I can finally put last year's performance in the rear view window. I was honestly worried that my racing years were winding down
