On 12 November 2011, my son and I climbed the Willis Tower for the Rehab Institute of Chicago (RIC). An article featuring this event was in the January 2012 Lake Union Herald. It is on page 10. You can click on the arrow (below and right) or on the file icon (below and left) to download a PDF version of that Lake Union Herald article.
To get a feeling for what it looked like as I climbed, you can view this YouTube video taken by Cody Renshaw (who was just a couple of seconds slower). He went up at a fairly steady pace.
This race had a special change compared to the one in 2010. My younger son would be joining me in the race. The organizers had agreed to let us climb right after the elite climbers. This would be a blessing.
I introduced Jason to several of the elite racers whom I had met the previous evening (at a pre-race event). The energetic music combined with heavy doses of adrenalin surging through my veins made it hard to calm down for an appropriately slow start. As had happened the previous year, I had a strong urge to go charging up the stairs. Once again, this urge would have to be restrained. After greeting people and looking around at the elite runners starting, we went back to the place where we should get in the line for our start time. I discovered that I should have gotten there 30 minutes early. Getting there 10 minutes before our start time meant that we were about 30 or 40 people further back in the line up. As fate would have it, these would be people we would need to pass on the way up. Passing is always slower than just starting ahead of the crowd.
Jason started just ahead of me. I fumbled with the stopwatch, and finally had to just let it go. I had set the metronome clicks to 192 steps per minute. This was way slower than what I wanted to do. But the brain was able to order the body to wait. At least this part was a success.
I was disappointed about losing a secret advantage I had been planning on using. I had planned to make this a barefoot climb. Climbing with no shoes brings an awesome sense of being light-footed. It can make a big difference in a 103 story building. Stair climbing is easy on the feet. It is low impact (at least when climbing up). But building management insisted that all climbers had to wear shoes this year. That changed my planned advantage to a disadvantage since I only had regular walking (or running) shoes. I would later purchase some Vibrum Five Finger shoes for the following races. They are a pretty good compromise between wearing shoes and going barefoot.
I passed my son after a half dozen floors or so. Once again, there was that crazy person calling out, "You're almost there" when I had only gone up 6-10 floors. Of course, this kind of encouragement is just shrugged off as deception. It would be better to say nothing than to tell that kind of story.
The stairwell itself was quiet enough. There was one point where they had a little boombox playing music. This time, I passed up the water that was offered. But there was one person who managed to put a cup in my hand about halfway up. I drank it and tossed the cup in the waste basket on the next floor. Later, another person thrust a cup in my hand as I went by. I was only able to down about half of it before giving it back with apologies on the next floor. That one bit the dust. But better waste it in the cup than to cough it up a few floors later. Under that level of intensity, it is hard to swallow anything.
It is always hard to gauge how hard to push. When the warning signs come, I do not want to fall down in some kind of cardiac emergency. My heart was racing, I was feeling severe fatigue, and my mouth was dry. I switched to taking one step for each three metronome clicks (rather than one for each two steps as is normal for me). After something like a dozen floors, I was able to switch back to one stride for every two clicks. Perhaps, this was at a level where I just needed to tough it out. But then again, I couldn't be sure.
After getting to the top, I waited for my son to join me. When he arrived, we enjoyed looking out over the city from the observation deck on the 103rd floor. It was wonderful to make these memories with my nine year old son. Adults kept coming up to him and telling him, "You passed me on the way up." He did not recognize them from the front since he had only seen them from behind. It was fun getting acquainted with some of these people. Unfortunately, we had nothing to write on, so all we could do is talk and move on. We could not make any notes for future reference.
I realize that I will have to change some of my training and practice for the next Willis Tower race. I have settled into a kind of plateau for the time being. Only new approaches will get new results.
Other Willis Tower Races: