Tackle the Tower

Last Saturday I did my first race of the season. It was a stair climb consisting of 37 flights/ 646 stairs. I had no idea what to expect with this, but I was starting to go through race withdrawal, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was something different anyway. There aren't a lot of races between the end of October and February, so I was pretty psyched to do something competitive, even if it was a short mini-event.

So this climb took place downtown at Tower City, and the stairwell was pretty narrow. We all had to line up to start one at a time (every 10 seconds). As I looked around I saw quite a variety of people prepping for the climb. They were stretching, chugging Gatorade, even doing breathing exercises. I thought maybe I had accidentally got in line for the Boston Marathon or something. I could hear people talking to each other about their "race strategies". They seemed to be already fantasizing about their moment of glory to be obtained upon reaching the summit of the stairwell.

About ten people in front of me was a woman with a baby strapped to her stomach. Behind her was a group of girls that looked about 12 or 13. The girls looked pretty excited about the big race- can't fault them for that, it would be an exciting thing for a middle school kid to do. They looked happy and were having fun. But then there were also adult men that were taking the whole thing way too seriously. One guy had about 6 race bibs pinned to his shirt. I guess he was going to make a day of this stair-stepping event... never mind that he probably ended up spending 80% of his time in line waiting for his next turn.

So I expected to have some tired legs from this little race, but that didn't end up being my problem. The air through the stair corridor was so dusty and dry that I ended up coughing with a sore throat by the end of my 8min 20sec climb. As it turns out, stairwells aren't the healthy places you would expect. I spent the next 2 days hacking and feeling mildly ill.

So not a great start to the season, but this was such a wack event that I don't think I would even classify it as a real race. I did get a T that I can put with my collection of shirts I don't wear, and I did get some free bottles of juice and Powerade that I will keep in my fridge for 2 months before throwing out, so I guess the whole experience wasn't a total loss. But, I will score this race pretty low on the Christie Race-O-Meter... D-.