Thanks ~~ For The Pace

Rounding the corner, his remarkable orange shirt grabbed my attention. As I turned to shake his hand, he looked to the other athletes whom he'd been relishing about the climb, and said, "Thanks for the pace!"

This was my twelfth climb over the past three years. And though some in the 'Stairclimb' competition business might climb twelve in a year, I was happy to just be a part of this amazing event.

The Empire State Building 'Runup' was celebrating its 35th annual climb. A competition which required each competitor to have participated in climbs such as the Sears Tower among others, and to have set certain time limits. Both of which I fortunately met. In December of 2011 I received notification that I was invited to the 2012 'Runup' to be held on February 8th. The excitement brought an increased enthusiasm to train with greater intensity..

Most reading this will say, "Stairclimb competition, what's that?" But for those who've been a competitor, it becomes a science all its own. Knowing how many steps per landing and per floor. Is it left turn or right turn? How many crossovers are there? How many stories are there? Do I wear gloves and use the handrails? These are but a few of the questions we ask.

The Empire State Building was the most unusual of stairwell configurations. Of the 86 stories, more than sixty had crossovers of ten plus feet. Being the competitor that I am, I tried to determine the best way to account for these crossovers. What I came up with was using a guy who was similar both in age and times in races in which we competed together. With the 'time science' calculated, I decided to attempt a time under seventeen minutes.

I'm not sure when the man in the 'orange' shirt became a mutual pacer. All I know, is that we raced together somewhere between 50 to 60 stories that night. At times I was the pace, and at other times it was the man in orange. Where I lost him, and if he was ahead of me or behind, this I did not know. You might say that all of us were a tad oxygen deprived.

So shaking his hand I smiled and asked, "So how old are you"? Returning the smile, he said, "Twenty three". And I asked, "What was your time"? He said, "Man you burned me up, I had to stop briefly and ended up at 18:20". "And you", he asked. "You don't want to know". I smiled again and said, "Sixteen minutes and fifty seconds". We both smiled and again shook hands.

A decade has now past and I'm still amazed that for one night in February 2012 I became a 'pace' for a kid thirty years my junior. A night in which I took Third Place for the 'Masters' division. And even now, ten years later, a smile still beams at the memory of such a night.