The MS Runner

I did the Run the Republic race this past Sunday in downtown Denver at the tallest building in the Rocky Mountain region which consisted of running (or walking) up 53 flights of stairs. I really didn’t know what to expect and I had no game plan at all. I figured that I would just play it by ear and see how it goes. It wasn’t like I wanted to beat any particular time or anything, I just wanted to say that I DID IT! For the most part, I took 2 steps at a time, but not at a very fast pace. I didn’t think I was doing too bad, because only 2 people passed me and they looked like they were about 18 years old, and I have kids older than that. I passed a bunch of people and there were quite a few that were really sucking wind. We had staggered start times and a runner would go every 7 seconds so there wasn’t too bad of a crowd on the steps. As I got near the end, I figured that I would run up the last 3 floors. HA. My lungs were burning, and my legs felt like jello. I was just glad that it was coming to an end. It was nice at the finish line because they had cheerleaders there handing out water and your medals. Or maybe I was hallucinating at that point. It didn’t matter. I finished and conquered the 1,098 steps and lived to tell about it. My time was 11 minutes and 49 seconds and I finished 526th out of 1,877. The average time was 15:39 and I would say that the average age was under 30 years old. All in all, I was pleased with my effort.

The day before this run, I ran 14 miles at an easy pace. My overall was 9:05 per mile. I took it real easy the first 9 miles, and then did 4 miles at a 8:00 per mile pace before finishing the last mile at about a 9:30. It’s funny but I sweated more doing the steps for less than 12 minutes, than I did for the whole 14 mile run. My only complaint about the stair climbing/running, is that there was no beer at the end. Sheesh.