MS Society Climb To The Top

[Jacob]

This is a chip-timed tower climb in the John Hancock building in Boston. 61 flights of stairs. This was my third time doing this event. Two years ago, I did it in 9:50, which was good enough for third place. Last year was 9:30, 6th place. You never know who might show up to these things: in 2010, I lost by almost two minutes to an Olympic rower. This year I was hoping for sub-9 minutes.

The event runs in waves and within the waves people are staggered by about 10-15 seconds at the start line. I wasn't organized enough with my preparation, so I started at the back of my wave. There was a lot of "excuse me, coming through" and "on your left/right" as I weaved my way through and around the bunch on flights 1-5. I got into a reasonable rhythm after that, but it was disrupted about halfway up when I passed another smaller bunch. I managed to run all the way up unlike last year when I really made it hard on myself by eating too many onions the night before.

I managed to smile for the camera on the ultimate flight, then spend 15 minutes at the top waiting for the pain to subside. 9:06, 2nd place.

It's amazing how 9 minutes going way past the red zone can lay you low for the rest of the day. I'm feeling better now though.

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/chapte ... index.aspx
http://www.coolrunning.com/results/12/m ... set1.shtml

[PJ McQuade]

Kudos, Jacob, sounds like good cross training for sure!

[jraguin]

That is great Jacob! I can only imagine the burning in your legs by the end. Good suffering training for cycling races!

Sometime on a ride I want to hear the story of eating too many onions... that has to be a story behind that.