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SkyRise Chicago™ - Adventure


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Chicago, Illinois
United States
Total Time = 21m 33s
Overall Rank = 132/1503
Age Group = 40-49
Age Group Rank = 24/176
Pre-race routine:

Woke up @ 4:45 Am. Had a Clif bar for breakfast. Got to the train station to catch the 6:07 Train to the city. Arrived @ Union station at 7:07 Ran the 2 blocks to Sears tower. Got to gear check, dropped off my stuff @ got some coffee.
Event warmup:

Waited/walked around and did some light stretching.
Post race
Event comments:

Will do this again!




Last updated: 2009-11-04 12:00 AM
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? No
Post race activities: Below average
Race evaluation [1-5] 4

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2009-11-17 8:37 PM

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Master
1348
100010010010025
Gurnee, IL
Subject: SkyRise Chicago™


2009-11-17 8:38 PM
in reply to: #2518947

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Master
1348
100010010010025
Gurnee, IL
Subject: RE: SkyRise Chicago™
This was the Sears Tower stair climb. (Willis Tower officially)  

Ran up the first 10 floors before settling down to a more manageable pace. Passed many climbers in the process. Then started using combo of upper body pulling up via hand rails, and alternating between skipping a step, and single stepping.

I thought I would be able to recover and run up and then slow to hand rail, skip step method.  That was not possible for me on this day.   I did wear my bike gloves which was helpful.

I had not trained on stairs but THOUGHT that all of the running/biking would have helped me more than it did.  Stair climbing is REALLY intense. The stairwell has VERY dry/dusty air and that quickly makes breathing tough.

During first 1/3 of the climb, I was thinking go fast, but not too fast as there is a long way to go.  

Next to the hand rail is where you want to climb. The issue is that they send climbers up every 10 seconds or so.  Many see/hear you coming and will move away so you can pass. some will not move. You have to go around them which really wastes a lot of energy. It made me need to recover a little behind the person, then burst around to beat them to the turn up the next flight. Passed many people.    

More of the same till the final 1/3 of the climb.  At this point there are logjams of people. It  became really difficult to work my way through during this phase as of course I was tired but at the same time I was moving much faster than the groups of people that were in front of me. It really slowed my pace down.  

It was tough, but after finishing, I was immediately down on myself thinking I could have gone faster.   

Essentially unless a person previously qualified as an elite climber, you can only take the strategy of burning most of your energy during the first half of the climb as you will not be able to dictate your pace with the log jam of climbers in the second half.    Have to have a lot of confidence in your ability to do this though as of course its a long way up.  Go anaerobic early and you will pay. So its a fine line.
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