Stair climbing

Climb for Hope, Boston, April 28, 2013
Signing up for a challenge is the hardest step, doing it is just a few extra steps
 
We had an eventful, but fun race, wearing MITOC shirts, and had MITOC friends helping us through.  Dan took second place with only 4 seconds behind the winner in the weight-of-the-world category, climbing 46 floors with a 25lb weight backpack!  I took an easier 2x route - running 92 floors with only thoughts weighing me down.

Race and competition
The organizers were very supportive of our team effort.  Before the start they wanted to recognize our last minute entry in memory of Sean, but we deferred as we were still waiting on Chris who couldn't join us today.

The other racers were also very down to earth and supportive.  I was taking the elevator down with a couple of breathless racers also going for the repetitive 2x.  I asked the guy next to me how he raced this, as I started with plans to save some for the second climb, but then went all out from the half-point up.  He admitted to saving some for the second time but pushing it too - "you still want to do your best 1x too".  He had climbed the 46 floors in 5:17, and won both the male 1x and 2x categories with a huge lead.  After the second round, we cheered each other between coughs, and he's: "Oh yeah, you'll cough for a couple of days, don't worry :)".  I had even stopped both times at the 2/3 water station for a preventative  sip for my parched throat, as you can't carry water on the course, but we were still rookies.

Dan and I were late to the after-party so we shared a table and a great conversation with two very nice ladies while waiting for the final results.  One of them was sharing more rookie advice - she was a 4 time Boston Marathoner and had done a few tower races before: "Didn't you see the cough drops at the bottom and this year at the top too?"  She had signed up to do 2x as well, but had ignored the directions to the elevator and had taken another stairwell for natural recovery - just like we do on our 21 floor Green Building Wednesdays!  She had walked down to the first floor only to see an emergency door that would activate an alarm, and to get out she had to run up to the 46th floor :) although untimed.  She at least won the female 1x category.  Official times can't tell the whole story!

Hardest part

All rational thinking was suspended at the half point on the second climb again:
I started planning to run/walk it a third time with Chris's tag "seems like I can finish 2x, so why not 3x?".  I found Dan to share the plan and he was feeling up for a second run together, him carrying his 25lb of coconut water, and probably could put me on the backpack too if necessary :)  We got an OK with the organizers to be the virtual Chris and Sean entrants, and we set up the timing tag.  Too bad they turned us back from the start line - the finish station needed to close soon to send the final results to the timing company.  We were somewhat disappointed as we knew we were ready to do it, but we agreed that committing to the challenge is the hardest, doing it is just a few extra steps.
Thanks to Chris for signing up with us as well.
Thanks to Ludwig for taking an early Sunday morning call and helping our frantic coordination!
Kudos to Dan again for the commitment!!!