March 15, 2014
A couple months ago, Andy asked us if we wanted to do "Bieg na Szczyt" (run to the top), a climb of 37 stories to the top of Rondo 1.
After some careful consideration and introspection, I finally decided to give it a shot, even though it is Ernst & Young's building. But then I found out all 500 places were filled up. Oh well, who wants to run up 37 flights of stairs anyway? Not me.
Juan, Andy, Alan, Shen, Maciek, Kasia and 494 other people definitely wanted to, which is why registration was full. And suddenly this feeling of something I couldn't have made me really want it. The event reverse psychology'd me!
Luckily, Katharina, someone whom I've never met in my entire life, said she wouldn't be able to go, and offered her spot in the competition (conveniently done via our Facebook event page, another reason why Facebook is the master of the universe). She insisted I don't pay for the spot, as long as she got the free t-shirt. I'm not complaining, but basically she hired me to run up some stairs so she could get a t-shirt. When you put it that way, I sound like a sucker.
Before the race, I didn't do much stair training, other than going two flights up at work every time I had computer problems (which is often). There are some stairs near my apartment, but they're only about 3-4 stories high, so it doesn't really work well for this kind of training. I'd be tired after getting to the top, but then after going back down in order to go back up again, the burning in the thighs goes away. There's a different burn if you go up 4 flights, then stop to go down, than if you keep going up, up, and more up. Your legs just know.
Apparently there's a lot of technique involved in stair running. I had no idea, but a couple people posted videos on Youtube. Apparently, you can do it hands-free (hard core), with both hands pulling up on the inside rail (to ease the burden on the legs and make your arms do more work), with hands holding opposite rails (but this is for tall people with long monkey arms), or some mix. There's also the decision as to how many steps you skip, or if you skip any at all. I watched a few videos to get an idea, contemplating the pros and cons of each (but didn't practice them). Like dorks, all of us first-time stair runners were asking each other "what technique are you going with?". I went with the Double Step Double Hand Inside Rail. I'm pretty sure that's official terminology.
The race day was a pretty long event, even though it only takes a few minutes to do the actual climb. In order not to create a massive traffic jam on the stairs (imagine when you have fire drills in your office building), each participant received a time slot, when we were herded into the starting area, starting in 15 second intervals. This created some space between each runner, but also created a fear of "I don't want to get passed by the person behind me, because that would be embarrassing". You can run quite far in a straight line in 15 seconds, but up stairs, it's only a couple flights. That means you can hear the person behind you coming up, and the sound of them breathing really hard makes it seem like they're right behind you. This is dangerous, because the key to stair running (in my expert opinion) is to keep a constant pace you can handle for the whole race. If you start too fast because Darth Vader's heavy breathing coming from behind is making you nervous, you could burn out after just 10 stories. This happened to a few people I talked to before I started.
So my strategy at this point was 2 hands-1 rail, skip a step, walk fast-don't run. And look good for the video cameras on the 10th and 19 floors.
I was trying to figure out a good pace, and arbitrarily I decided 10 seconds per story would be good. This would get me to finish the run in about 6 minutes. I don't know why that was my goal, it just was.
I got into the herding area with the 11:35 am group, just ahead of Maciek, another WITCer who is a pretty good runner, faster than I am (Darth Vader's heavy breathing came to mind). I asked him if he had done any training. Not at all, he replied, except he ran up the Palace of Culture. 5 times. If you don't know what that is, check it out. "No training" my ass.
After the start gun, I resisted temptation to run. The quick walking seemed to be going pretty well. But after 10 floors, my arms and shoulders were in more discomfort than my legs, from pulling myself up. Even though I thought I warmed up my arms, I didn't warm up my "pulling myself up stairs muscles", so they were really stiff. I held the consistent pace through the first 15 floors, when Darth Vader, I mean Maciek, nearly caught up to me. I could hear him breathing so it pushed me a little bit to not slow him down for the next few floors, but when he was ready to pass me around the 20th, I moved aside and let him go.
Floors 22-32 were a bit of a blur. I really don't remember them, other than my legs were screaming at me. I "woke up" when I saw 32 and started trying to do math in my head regarding how many more floors were left. And also checking if my pace was still under 10 seconds per level. At that point, math was really hard. The attendant at floor 34 helped a lot when she held up 3 fingers and was smiling at me...only 3 to go! I pushed myself to finish strong (until I noticed a cute girl in front of me and slowed down a bit). Then I decided to pass her and sprinted (or at least it seemed like a sprint, but it was probably slow motion in reality) until I got to the top.
But just like every race, there was a fake finish line before the real finish line. After hitting the top step, I thought about falling down to the floor. But we had to continue, weaving through a flat corridor (left - right - left - right) until it opened up to the finish line. After I got my medal, energy drink and water, I could only fall down to the floor. Everyone else was laying on their backs with their feet in the air against the wall, so I did the same. Did that help? I don't know. But it looks goofy, which is always fun. While laying on my back, trying to catch my breath, I smiled at the girl from the 35th floor, but she walked right past me.
Back on the ground floor, we all celebrated our accomplishment. It's funny to have so much build up for just a few minutes of action. We were literally at the building (Rondo 1) for 2.5 hours, for 5-7 minutes of exercise. But we weren't complaining. Although very intense and a bit painful, it was a lot of fun (except for the strange cough that we all had afterwards...from the poorly ventilated stairwell and gross air we were violently sucking in).
I finished with a time of 5 minutes 33 seconds (the winner was around 3:20), which was 91st out of 416 men. I guess my stair climbing ability isn't so bad (Alan finished 49th and Maciek 50th with awesome times). Because I was running in Katharina's spot, I had her name on my race bib, which was pretty great too. Maybe that's why the girl from the 35th floor didn't smile at me.
Much respect to those around who do much more than 37 floors (even double or triple!). I think there's one up the Empire State building, which is a bit taller than E&Y Warsaw's. But I think 37 is enough for me.
Here's a cool video of the event from the organizers with some clips of my WITC friends.
A couple months ago, Andy asked us if we wanted to do "Bieg na Szczyt" (run to the top), a climb of 37 stories to the top of Rondo 1.
After some careful consideration and introspection, I finally decided to give it a shot, even though it is Ernst & Young's building. But then I found out all 500 places were filled up. Oh well, who wants to run up 37 flights of stairs anyway? Not me.
Juan, Andy, Alan, Shen, Maciek, Kasia and 494 other people definitely wanted to, which is why registration was full. And suddenly this feeling of something I couldn't have made me really want it. The event reverse psychology'd me!
Luckily, Katharina, someone whom I've never met in my entire life, said she wouldn't be able to go, and offered her spot in the competition (conveniently done via our Facebook event page, another reason why Facebook is the master of the universe). She insisted I don't pay for the spot, as long as she got the free t-shirt. I'm not complaining, but basically she hired me to run up some stairs so she could get a t-shirt. When you put it that way, I sound like a sucker.
Before the race, I didn't do much stair training, other than going two flights up at work every time I had computer problems (which is often). There are some stairs near my apartment, but they're only about 3-4 stories high, so it doesn't really work well for this kind of training. I'd be tired after getting to the top, but then after going back down in order to go back up again, the burning in the thighs goes away. There's a different burn if you go up 4 flights, then stop to go down, than if you keep going up, up, and more up. Your legs just know.
Apparently there's a lot of technique involved in stair running. I had no idea, but a couple people posted videos on Youtube. Apparently, you can do it hands-free (hard core), with both hands pulling up on the inside rail (to ease the burden on the legs and make your arms do more work), with hands holding opposite rails (but this is for tall people with long monkey arms), or some mix. There's also the decision as to how many steps you skip, or if you skip any at all. I watched a few videos to get an idea, contemplating the pros and cons of each (but didn't practice them). Like dorks, all of us first-time stair runners were asking each other "what technique are you going with?". I went with the Double Step Double Hand Inside Rail. I'm pretty sure that's official terminology.
The race day was a pretty long event, even though it only takes a few minutes to do the actual climb. In order not to create a massive traffic jam on the stairs (imagine when you have fire drills in your office building), each participant received a time slot, when we were herded into the starting area, starting in 15 second intervals. This created some space between each runner, but also created a fear of "I don't want to get passed by the person behind me, because that would be embarrassing". You can run quite far in a straight line in 15 seconds, but up stairs, it's only a couple flights. That means you can hear the person behind you coming up, and the sound of them breathing really hard makes it seem like they're right behind you. This is dangerous, because the key to stair running (in my expert opinion) is to keep a constant pace you can handle for the whole race. If you start too fast because Darth Vader's heavy breathing coming from behind is making you nervous, you could burn out after just 10 stories. This happened to a few people I talked to before I started.
So my strategy at this point was 2 hands-1 rail, skip a step, walk fast-don't run. And look good for the video cameras on the 10th and 19 floors.
I was trying to figure out a good pace, and arbitrarily I decided 10 seconds per story would be good. This would get me to finish the run in about 6 minutes. I don't know why that was my goal, it just was.
I got into the herding area with the 11:35 am group, just ahead of Maciek, another WITCer who is a pretty good runner, faster than I am (Darth Vader's heavy breathing came to mind). I asked him if he had done any training. Not at all, he replied, except he ran up the Palace of Culture. 5 times. If you don't know what that is, check it out. "No training" my ass.
One last stretch before the start...
After the start gun, I resisted temptation to run. The quick walking seemed to be going pretty well. But after 10 floors, my arms and shoulders were in more discomfort than my legs, from pulling myself up. Even though I thought I warmed up my arms, I didn't warm up my "pulling myself up stairs muscles", so they were really stiff. I held the consistent pace through the first 15 floors, when Darth Vader, I mean Maciek, nearly caught up to me. I could hear him breathing so it pushed me a little bit to not slow him down for the next few floors, but when he was ready to pass me around the 20th, I moved aside and let him go.
Floors 22-32 were a bit of a blur. I really don't remember them, other than my legs were screaming at me. I "woke up" when I saw 32 and started trying to do math in my head regarding how many more floors were left. And also checking if my pace was still under 10 seconds per level. At that point, math was really hard. The attendant at floor 34 helped a lot when she held up 3 fingers and was smiling at me...only 3 to go! I pushed myself to finish strong (until I noticed a cute girl in front of me and slowed down a bit). Then I decided to pass her and sprinted (or at least it seemed like a sprint, but it was probably slow motion in reality) until I got to the top.
But just like every race, there was a fake finish line before the real finish line. After hitting the top step, I thought about falling down to the floor. But we had to continue, weaving through a flat corridor (left - right - left - right) until it opened up to the finish line. After I got my medal, energy drink and water, I could only fall down to the floor. Everyone else was laying on their backs with their feet in the air against the wall, so I did the same. Did that help? I don't know. But it looks goofy, which is always fun. While laying on my back, trying to catch my breath, I smiled at the girl from the 35th floor, but she walked right past me.
Back on the ground floor, we all celebrated our accomplishment. It's funny to have so much build up for just a few minutes of action. We were literally at the building (Rondo 1) for 2.5 hours, for 5-7 minutes of exercise. But we weren't complaining. Although very intense and a bit painful, it was a lot of fun (except for the strange cough that we all had afterwards...from the poorly ventilated stairwell and gross air we were violently sucking in).
I finished with a time of 5 minutes 33 seconds (the winner was around 3:20), which was 91st out of 416 men. I guess my stair climbing ability isn't so bad (Alan finished 49th and Maciek 50th with awesome times). Because I was running in Katharina's spot, I had her name on my race bib, which was pretty great too. Maybe that's why the girl from the 35th floor didn't smile at me.
Much respect to those around who do much more than 37 floors (even double or triple!). I think there's one up the Empire State building, which is a bit taller than E&Y Warsaw's. But I think 37 is enough for me.
Some of us (coughing) after the race
Here's a cool video of the event from the organizers with some clips of my WITC friends.
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