2009 Results:

 

E-Team top 5 finishers (which did not include me and safety spotter Kip)

53:56 cum, 10:48 average.

Place 17th of 33 teams.

5th out of 10 gender composite (3M/2F) teams

(though none were carrying a toddler!)

 

 

Winning team was 33:20 cum, average 6:40 (all male)

Top team of same gender composition was 9th with a 49:34 cum, average 9:55

Final finishing team was 81:24 cum, average 16:17

 

Team Notes: Dave Stalsbroten clearly made the difference on the guy’s side finishing an amazing 16th overall.

But amazingly Meg Sweeney with not much training finished10th among women, and Maribeth 33rd (similarly joining quite recently) was nothing short of awesome. Well done to both ladies! Kirk Clothier likewise was fantastic at 12 minutes, 173rd overall and 2nd among his age group and as the third oldest climber in the whole bunch. What a stellar group.  Kip would have

 

Keith Climb: I’ll admit, this year’s climb seemed exceptionally hard, though I am convinced that absent my own training tower, a year’s absence from the stairs themselves with this load makes one forget. It was likely just as hard last year I have just blocked out the pain.

 

That being said, I was somewhat off the pace last year’s time of 12:37 by 1:10, though it last year I climbed with the training pack, the discernable difference is unclear. While happy to be alive, I’ll confess I was somewhat disappointed not to be faster than last year as that was my plan in training. I’ll note some factors here: my weight was up a bit from Thanksgiving surplus, Emma’s weight was up slightly (4lbs), and I added a year to my age…despite my best efforts to the contrary. Now that I’ve got them out there, I’ll move them from the factors category to excuses category and move on to the real analysis.

 

I was better conditioned and had a much better plan this year which included safety spotter Kip to pace my steps so as to keep me to my plan. But you know what they say about the road to hell. I noticed right off that it felt nothing like my training pack/elliptical machine training as I settled, I thus settled lower than my plan after the first 1:20 and continued to fall further off pace as I went up. My goal was to finish below 12 minutes with an average pace of 93 steps/min. I was climbing below that average by floor 43 according to Kip and 13 floors is an eternity when you’re out of gas. So I just plodded along I believe getting all the way down to 75spm, eventually managing only the barest of sprints on the last two floors but even that was meager.

 

Assessment: I am confident, based on my coaching experience, that training similar to how one competes is essential for both physical and mental reasons. But there is an inherent problem in that there are no towers readily available to train in. I cranked up my resistance on the elliptical this year, trained well in an overload format, set new personal records repeatedly, but to no avail on climb day. I will either need to find a different machine that closer approximates the actual gain of potential energy of a tower, or really wind up the elliptical resistance to better match the nature of this beast. This of course is all mitigated by the strong likelihood that Emma will climb herself starting with the relay next year. She has registered interest and obviously it would be very much in her favor from a health perspective to be able to climb it. She did the very hilly, 4-mile walk last spring and continues to maintain excellent health, so this may have been it for old dad unless I can find some other kid(s) to carry.

 

On that note, and for comparison sake Bryan Jones (age 32) climbed tandem with his daughter the full 56 this year, finishing 202nd overall and besting Em and I by 1:14. Sierra is a scant 30 lbs to Emma’s 52, but it was a fine finish nevertheless and he was our teams’ 5th finisher which is amazing to have him advance our team standing despite the extra weight. When you consider E-Team finishing in the middle of the pack whilst carrying a toddler, it is impressive.

 

For the statistically minded, other comparisons are noteworthy as well. I finished 243rd out of 357 climbers of all types, finishing 13th of 22 in my age bracket (45-49), and 9th of 13 in my gender/age group. Also of some note is that, had I been carrying and wearing an additional 20 pounds or so and wearing a regulated breathing mask, my time might have earned me 9th among 40 firefighters.

 

Last year's (2008) Offical Stairclimb site

Last year's (2008) official event results link

2009 Stairclimb for Emma information Stairclimb link

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