It burns!

Trek Up the Tower hurt. I took Steve's advice and took the stairs two at a time for as long as I could. I pulled with the railing and I passed as many people as I could. The race was 40 flights, 633 feet in the air, 870 steps. I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect. I registered for the women's recreational division based on times from the previous year. I had no idea. I definitely ended up sand bagging. Oh well. I learned for next year I guess.

I also learned that the mayor of Omaha always gets to run up first and the news anchor for channel 7 always gets to go 7th? Lame I know. There were also 3 or so fireman that did the entire thing in their gear with tanks. It seems like having an O2 tank would make life easier, other than having to drag the stinking thing up the stairs but they were telling a buddy of mine that it was not continuous flow, that you had to exert extra effort to suck the air in. Yikes. That is hard core.

When I got to the 38th floor landing, there was a girl standing there with her hands clasped behind her head really struggling to take some big breaths. She was starting to cry and as I went around the next landing she was sobbing. I told her how great she was for getting 38 floors up and that she was sooo close. What I wanted to tell her was that she was wasting all sorts of energy crying and that she only had two floors to go before it was all over. That she should take all the time she needed and then get her booty to the top. After I finished I really wanted to go back and cheer her on but i didn't figure they would let me do that. I waited and she came out of the stairwell a couple of minutes later. Way to go, girl I don't know.

Here are the top ten female recreational times...

Trek up the Tower
February 23, 2008 - Omaha, Nebraska

Female Recreational Results

Place Name City Age Div/Tot Finish
===== ===================== ================= === ======== =======
1 KATIE COLLINS OMAHA NE 27 1/43 7:24
2 ELIZABETH HAYCRAFT OMAHA NE 35 1/60 8:00
3 MANDY ROSSO OMAHA NE 32 2/60 8:09
4 ERICA FLECK OMAHA NE 26 2/43 8:29
5 DONNA FRICKE PAPILLION NE 44 1/55 8:37
6 DANA VOTAVA OMAHA NE 30 3/60 8:41
7 BECKY MCCREERY OMAHA NE 28 3/43 8:51
8 JEAN PECK OMAHA NE 45 2/55 8:52
9 ANN RONK COUNCIL BLUFFS IA 25 4/43 8:54
10 ERICKA KIMMINAU OMAHA NE 27 5/43 8:56


I am still coughing and my chest sounds all rattly but my legs aren't tired at all. I ended up winning my age group (1/43) and the women's rec division (1/190). Next year, I think I will have to do the competeitive division because I would have been 3rd in my age group there and about 8th overall. It was alright. I am not going to do professional stair climbing but the exertion time is so short that you can't hardly pass it up.

And oh, by the way, the overall winner for competitive men was a guy named Ivan who runs lots of the local races around here. He finished in 4:40. Holy crap.

Anywho, time for a real run. Gotta test out the new shoes and the foot and burn some of Kona's energy off. Yay, two birds with one stone.