I woke up a bit earlier than i needed to; i always get nerves before a race!  I made a banana & dark cherry smoothie for some energy, and threw in a little coffee.  Nice mix, tasty!  Alex and i went to the race, checked in, i got dressed, and before too long we were lining up to climb!

Oz and Kristin lined up at the front, as they should, being clearly the two strongest climbers there.  I was about 20 spots back.  Before too long, i was heading up the steps.  My strategy was to do the first few climbs in about 6 minutes each to warm up, then pick up the pace to about 5:30 each, hopefully allowing me to get into the door at the base a 10th time.  I wasn’t sure this was realistic, but it seemed like a good goal to shoot for.

A few people surged past me, but i passed a few before the first climb was over. I looked at my phone and saw i had done almost 6 on the dot.  One of my climbing friends ( Dave McGrath ) who had surged past me was in the elevator with me, and one of the other climbers said we would be exiting to the left, and Dave trusted him and ran down the wrong hallway entirely. I went after him so he wouldn’t lose too much time, and we started our second ascent.  ½ way through the ascent, oz passed me, meaning he was on his third lap while i was only ½ way through my second, amazing!  Near the top, Kristin passed me as well, and i stuck with her for a few floors, and she, oz, and i took the elevator down together.

You can see all this ( the first two climbs ) here: Go Pro of the first two climbs

After that, i just focused on maintaining a steady pace.  After awhile, i lost track of how many climbs i had done, which i found annoying, and i also forgot to check my time when i started, so i had no idea what sort of lap times i was doing.  I did know the time, so i decided to “go” when it was 45 minutes in.

I started the first lap after 45 minutes pretty fast, on a 5 or sub 5 minute pace, but after 10 floors, i developed a pretty significant side stitch.  It really hurt!  So i slowed back down to my previous pace after a few floors of going very slow to try to work the stitch out.  I was hopeful that maybe i could pick up the pace a little and get through the door with a minute left.

Right around then, Kristin passed me again, so she was two laps ahead of me.  Amazing!  Later in that climb, Oz passed me again too.  So, she was ahead of him now, but i wasn’t sure if that translated to the standings of time in stairs counting as a tiebreak or if she might be able to get in an extra climb.

I got downstairs for a climb when my timer said there were 3 minutes left, and i knew my last climb was coming.  I was pretty exhausted, and waited to go up for a minute by my brother and Oz’s wife Kristie.  Although i thought there were 3 minutes left, someone called out “One minute!” So i sprinted to the steps to make sure i could get in one more climb that would count.  I took the first 10-15 floors very easy, and stopped to thank the volunteers along the way for their support.

At the end, we all recovered on the top floor while the rest of the climbers doing the triple and single events headed up.  Jesse Berg burst through the door after colliding with some of the stragglers from the power hour.  He had clocked 2:43, an amazing time, something no other climber would come close to.

At the bottom, we learned that Oz and Kristin had both completed 11 climbs each, with Kristin spending 12 fewer seconds in the stairs, so she was the overall winner!  Oz had clocked the fastest single lap between them a scorching 3:18, the second fastest climb of the day, even among people who had just done 1 climb.  Both amazing athletes!

I ended up completing 9 climbs, and these were my times:

5:59    5:45    5:54    5:57    6:02    6:01    5:52    6:04    6:37

I was pretty happy i was able to be so accurate with my goal of 6 minutes per climb with no external references.  #2 was where i chased kristin up the last few floors, so it was a few second faster than average.  #7 was where i started fast and got a stitch, and #9 was where i didn’t have another climb to sneak in and i took it easy and thanked volunteers.

I was ok with this result, i was hoping for 10, but it was my first climb, and 10 may have been a tough goal in any case, as my friend Dave McGrath, who is quite a bit faster than me, “only” got 10, and pushed himself hard enough to throw up to do so.  Nonetheless, i learned a lot, one thing being that i need to perhaps have a better nutrition and hydration strategy to prevent another side stitch.  With another power hour coming up in only 6 days, i had something to prepare for!

4 ascents , 2 buildings, 2 races, 1 weekend and 1 stair addict crazy enough to do both.

The weekend of the 26th – 27th of January sported two awesome climbing races. The first was the “Big D” Climb in Dallas Texas, a 52 story, 1040 step race for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. 1268 folks entered the race, 1051 finished. Our team “West Coast Labels/XGym Team Texas” did fantastic. I myself (Scott Stanley) took 3rd place overall, and our team also took 5th and 6th place overall. Patricia Woolslayer who took 6th overall also won the Women’s overall. In the team category, out of 192 teams entered, and taking the top 3 times from each team we placed 2nd behind a great team from Tulsa Oklahoma,  “Anti-Gravity”. Overall their climbers placed 1st, 2nd and 7th in the top 10. These 2 teams dominated the climb, and made for a close team finish.

As soon as that race was over I flew to Chicago to do the Aon Chicago Step up for Kids 80 story 1600+ step climb the next morning. Needless to say, after climbing the Dallas building twice, (once is never enough) and getting a short night’s sleep, I did not have the freshest legs for the Aon Climb. Still, a respectable climb ending up in 29th place out of the 2295 climbers that finished that race. Of course you can’t climb a building once, so the 2nd time I did it was pretty close to my first time of 13:29.

Overall it was a blast. Got to be with our team in Texas that had an amazing race. Then got to be with the rest of the West Coast Labels/XGym team in Chicago as they dominated that race! Spending time with all the team mates and folks at both races was a hoot, and if I get the chance to do it again, I’ll do it in a heart beat!

Here are the links to the official results:

Dallas (the link is kind of slow – overall results take about 30 seconds):
http://www.mychiptime.com/searchevent.php?id=7204

Chicago:
http://results.active.com/events/aon-step-up-for-kids-benefiting-lurie-children-s

-Written by Scott Stanley (with emphasis added by PJ Glassey – like the mofo stuff – because Scott is a crazy mofo and so far I’m the only one with the password to this blog, so I get to edit stuff however I want).

P.S. Karen just sent in her report of the AON climb and she’s another crazy mofo. She placed fifth overall in the women’s division out of 1100, and 39th overall, including dudes. At 13:55 this year, she shaved off one minute, 40 seconds from her previous time. Then she climbed it four more times because she’s a crazy mofo.

The American Lung Association brokered the deal with the Stratosphere folks to have this special invitation only race for the top 50 male and female climbers in the USA.

Other people can of course race or climb in this fundraising event, but the competitors will get a special start before the main pack, so they have a clear stairwell to get the best time possible.

All 2013 USA stair races will be counted in the scoring system to determine the best USA racers for the year, but this one will carry extra points since it is the official USA championship race. The winner of this race may or may not end up being the overall USA champion stair racer by the end of the year, but even if they are not, they will still earn bragging rights for winning one of the tallest and most competitive races in the country.

The “Big Pink” tower turned out to be no match for the X Gym team from Seattle this year. Our small, rag-tag team of 7 ended up hogging all the medals once again.

There were different length climbs, so we had to be strategic in our placement and selection of who ran what.

• Beverly grant won the 20 floor sprint (including dudes).
• I (PJ) won the 40 floor run.
• Nandor won the 80 floor climb.
• Tristan came in 2nd in the 160 floor marathon, right behind Ricky Gates, a world-famous mountain running champ, so among normal mortals, he was first place.
• And we won fastest team as well.

The American Lung Association did an amazing job with this first year race. Hallucination Sports did a phenomenal job with the timing too.

It was a rel pleasure to be a part of this event and wonderful cause!

For the full results, click here.

123,480 steps climbed (Goal 100,000)
76,440 vertical feet (Goal 75,000)
5,880 floors (Goal 5,000)

We did this climb relay style, taking turns, so there was always someone in the stairwell at any given moment, unless they were in the elevator coming back down.

We tried 3 climbs in a row each, 2 times each and 1 time each, but even with 3 times each, the rest interval wasn’t long enough for any sleep. It was long enough however, to stretch, hydrate and get some food before the next shift.

The first 5 hours flew by. It felt like 2 hours or less to most of us. Then by hour 8, we were feeling the effects – probably because we started climbing at 6 pm, so most of us had already been awake for 10 or more hours before the first steps were taken.

This is probably why the sleep deprivation really took it’s toll at about hour 10 in the climb. At that point, it was getting pretty tough physically and we weren’t halfway done. That was hard to swallow mentally, so the next 4 hours were brutal.

Then at hour 14, we knew we were “on the other side,”  so being more than half done was nice. Physically, it was still brutal, but psychologically  it felt doable.

At about that point, Kacie got stuck in the elevator. It broke down between floors! The fire department had to come rescue her through the roof of the elevator, but by then, about 3 hours had gone by with Kacie out of the rotation. That was brutal too.

Then, with Kacie back in it, Mark, Kristin and I cut back to two times up while Kacie did 3 times up in order to catch up to us. For a true relay, no one of us could be more than 1 floor ahead of any other teammate, so we had to make sure it all matched up by the end. Thank goodness we had Kacie’s dad there doing the calculations and keeping track or we might never have gotten that straightened out.

Kacie caught up and we finished with “onesies” for the last few hours to see if that would help us get more stairs in. The rest intervals were shorter, but the speed picked up, so that helped us log more floors despite the physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Mark turned into Superman in the end, putting up the fastest overall time and finishing as our anchor leg guy to get that last burst of floors in the final seconds.

The girls were the fastest average times overall. No surprise there. They weigh next to nothing and their power is amazing, not to mention their killer endurance.

None of us had any real problems during the event. I took some blood samples and vitals a couple times when climbers were feeling funky, but everything came out normal.

We watched our weight closely, because more than a few pounds light and dehydration starts to hamper performance. If the weight goes up on the other hand, then too much water might become a factor along with  water toxicity issues. We made sure to get our electrolytes too, and any food when possible.

I felt nauseated the last 8 hours, so I only took in water and coconut water. I wasn’t worried about hitting any wall though, because I was “fat adapted” before the race even started, so I knew I had plenty of fat to run on. Until that point, I was eating my own chocolate recipe and taking occasional spoonfuls of MCT oil. Fat was my fuel and it worked great even though I was just under 7% body fat starting the race.

I warned Kacie about my “fat adapted” experiment I had started when she called me to invite me on the team. I also reminded her that I always trained under 10 minutes per day and by the end of any given week, I had exercised for less than an hour – including strength and cardio. I couldn’t talk her out of it though, because she had faith that I’d be able to “gut it out” when the going got tough. She also wanted to create a team with the most compatible personalities for the most powerful mojo. That turned out to be a brilliant plan, because the collective attitude really did turn out to be key, making us a more effective team than many other teams made up of “better” climbers – but with a risk of personality conflicts, which can devastate performance more than anything.

Our support crew was also key. Brady (Kristin’s boyfriend and fellow “step” brother), Adam  (Kacie’s husband), Tony (massage therapist), the ALA staff, the Speedy Banana crew and more, really made a huge difference and helped out a ton.

Personally, I’ll never do it again, but it was great to have done it – ONCE. I’m glad Kacie invited me and for the next relay team who wants to break our record, I wish them luck, because it will be tough!

Be sure to check out http://www.facebook.com/EpicClimb for more pics and stuff and for an awesome post with all the play-by-play details, read Kristin’s blog!

Just click the “DOWNLOAD POSTER” link below to download and print your own National Take The Stairs Day poster for display in the following places:

• At the bottom of the “UP” escalator.
• In the elevators.*
• In your stairwell (outside and inside the doors).*
• In your office (best by the exit doors).*
• On the entrance door to your building.*
• At home as a reminder.

Post your additional ideas in the comment section below!

DOWNLOAD POSTER

*Make sure your building allows access to your floor (or confirm that you have a key or keycard) before ascending and promoting to others. Most buildings are only open at the bottom (since stairwells are typically only designated for fire escape purposes) and if that’s the case, then you and others will have to go all the way back down and that kind of defeats the purpose. Plus, descending stairs makes you really sore and is hard on your joints. Ascending on the other hand, is less impact than walking and is SUPER good for you! In light of this, we encourage you to go ahead an use the elevator to go down your building.

Important note: Multi-floor access is also nice in case physical condition does not allow for a full climb to the goal floor. We encourage the “buddy system” for those who are deconditioned. We also recommend that a physician approval is obtained before attempting stairs.

• Fastest male
• Fastest female
• Fastest gym
• Fastest team and fastest relay team

That’s all the categories they had.

Check out the gap between our team and the 2nd place team.

JACKSONVILLE, FL – On January 4, 2013 four elite stair climbers will repeatedly ascend 42 flights of stairs at the Bank of America Tower in a never-been-done-before 24 hour endurance event, raising awareness about lung diseases and promoting the Fight For Air Climb Jacksonville on February 2, 2013.

The team hopes to collectively climb over 5,000 floors in 24 hours. If successful, they will have climbed over 100,000 stairs, which is equivalent to more than twice up Mt Everest. All four climbers attempting this feat are elite athletes, each with their own personal success in the fitness industry.

Mark Trahanovsky, 53 years old from Yorba Linda, California is the creator of the USA Stair Climb Association. He is also the founder of the West Coast Labels stair racing team, which is the fastest stair climb team in the world. Mark is ranked among top 50 stair climbers in the world and has competed in over 40 stair races in the past ten years.

PJ Glassey, 46 years old from Seattle, Washington is ranked among the top 10 U.S. tower climbers, is owner of the X Gyms, has authored the book of  “Cracking Your Calorie Code” and is the creator of the X Gym workout DVD.

Kacie Fischer Cleveland, 27 years old from Ponte Vedra, Florida was ranked among the top 10 female tower runners in the world in 2010 and 2011. Cleveland recently broke a World Record inline skating more than 2,800 miles across the USA.

Kristin Frey, 28 years old from Schaumburg, Illinois has been ranked among the top 3 female tower runners in the world since 2010 and has qualified for the Boston Marathon 10 times.

“We’re climbing on behalf of those who can’t,” says Trahanovsky. “The majority of the stair climb races in the U.S. are organized by the American Lung Association and we are so thankful for everything they do!”

The Fifth Annual Fight for Air Climb Jacksonville, benefiting the American Lung Association, is the only competitive stair climb on the First Coast and is held in the city’s tallest building consisting of 42 floors (838 steps). This year’s climb event will be held Saturday, February 2, 2013 at the Bank of America Tower in downtown Jacksonville. “It’s an honor to be able to promote such a worthy cause and inaugural race with a world record attempt like this,” says Kacie.

Those who wish to participate in the Fight For Air Climb Jacksonville on February 2, 2013 can register today at www.ClimbJax.org.  For questions or information on the Fight For Air Climb Jacksonville, please contact Nicola Barnack at nbarnack@lungfla.org.

As stair climb enthusiasts, participants and  stair climbing advisors, we have witnessed many non-active people in poor health and sometimes seriously overweight turn their lives around with the simple act of walking up stairs.

Stair climbing is becoming popular and it’s popularity can be attributed to it being non-impact, with workouts mainly done indoors, so bad weather or darkness does not effect performance and going up stair does not require any special athletic ability or equipment. All a person needs are stairs and a pair of shoes !

On January 9^th we want to encourage all who normally take an elevator or escalator to take the stairs instead. From doctors and nurses in hospitals to secretaries and business professionals in office buildings, our hope is that if you want to become more physically fit, you will discover how GREAT an exercise walking up stairs really is.

Show the nation that you are ready to “STEP UP” to this challenge!

NOTE: Anyone starting a new exercise or activity plan of any type should consult a physician before doing so.

And then check out the size of the gap between those teams and the X Gym team:

Nuf said.

We smoked another one. 

Official results here:

http://www.hallucinationsports.com/event/show/27817419#/results::1352647022131

And great coverage on Komo 4 News!