Fitness

As the day of the Big Climb crept closer I started to worry that I was in over my head. It's one thing to walk up four flights of stairs when an elevator is out of service, but the notion of getting to the top of the tallest building in Seattle by stairs alone seemed more and more absurd. There was simply nothing in my past experience to prepare me. I didn't even have a feel for how long it would take. Despite these concerns, we met at the Columbia Tower and started the race just past 10:45 AM. (It's anyone's guess how Kevin and I ended up with the same start time.)

Racers are allowed through the starting gate in ten-second intervals to avoid congestion in the stairwell. The stairwell is small enough that you can grab the railings and make each flight in three big steps. The plan to pace myself was forgotten. I rushed up the first ten flights in an adrenaline panic. The twentieth flight saw my heart rate peak. I had to pull back and begin pacing. The rest of the flights were more of a climb than a race.

Kevin crossed the finish line in a stunning 15 minutes and 7 seconds. My time was a more modest 18 minutes and 24 seconds. I guess we've established what I need to beat next year. The distribution of finish times makes me feel a little guilty that I didn't push myself harder.

Training in a city can present challenges once you get to the half-marathon and marathon distances. No one likes to have to stop every other block for a crosswalk light, or contend with dangerously uneven concrete or asphalt surfaces when focusing on the completion of a 10 to 20 mile run. On the other hand, all the half- and full-marathons I've ever run were in urban environments (which implies that you should be training for that sort of terrain). If you're looking for a good ten-mile route in Seattle, try the route shown in the following map. A group of us from Chuckit ran it this past Saturday, before the downpour started.

If you're a runner visiting Paris, consider running classic parts of the city. Paris is very "runner friendly". You'll likely see people on the wide sidewalks jaunting past you when you walk the city. Melissa and I took the opportunity and ran from our hotel, down the Champs-Elysees to the Louvre and (the other direction) to the Eiffel Tower. Route maps were captured with my Garmin Forerunner 305:

Champs-Elysees to Louvre	Champs-Elysees to Eiffel

It was a very memorable experience that I'm happy to have had. We might even start to make a tradition of visiting and running in world-renowned cities.

Sunday, March 18th is the annual "Big Climb" benefiting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For those unfamiliar with the event, it involves running (hopefully) up the 69 flights of stairs in Seattle's Columbia Tower. I have no delusions about my performance in this event -- I'm planning to conservatively pace myself in the fantasy that I might actually finish all 1,311 steps. I'll be trying my hardest to keep up with Kevin Wagner.

You can help motivate me by donating a few dollars.

Ten of us (Melissa, Rachele, Leslie, Dan, Bethany, Dan, Roger, Schelley, Patrick, and me) got together this year to run the 23rd Annual Henry Weinhard's St. Patrick's Day Dash in downtown Seattle. The race starts at the Seattle Center every year, runs down the failing Viaduct, and finishes at Safeco Stadium in Seattle's SoDo. Despite the poor weather, more than 15,000 runners come out for the slightly longer than 5K run. That's a record number of participants, exceeding last year's number by almost 3,000. We finished the race and made a rainy dash to Kells Irish Pub for some mid-morning breakfast. The route map was recorded with my Garmin Forerunner 305.