Amazingly, after hanging out with friends at the Sweetwater 420 Festival yesterday and even later at Manuel's, I managed to get up for the Climb Atlanta run, a fund raiser for the Lung Association.
I didn't want to drive but I had to get there an hour before the race started. On North Avenue, the Bank of America tower loomed. I often use the tower to orient myself in the city, especially at night. I wasn't sure I wanted to climb 55 floors of it this morning.
When the race started, we lined up in order of our bib numbers. I was #51, just after the first group. You entered the stairwell every 15 seconds. It was intimidating to just watch people run up the stairs out of view one at a time.
A photographer took pictures of people before they went up. This was good because afterwards I wasn't able to really stand still for a picture.
So I went up. It was eerie -- I couldn't hear people ahead of me. I thought I had the stair thing down -- I bike, I run some of the toughest hills in the city, but after the fourth floor I knew I wasn't prepared for this.
So I hoofed it. Sometimes two steps at a time, sometimes one. On later floors I took advantage of the handrails.
It wasn't too bad. A volunteer greeted you on every floor, which was just two turns of stairs. (I was expecting three or four turns like in some buildings).
A little after halfway up, the stairwell is carpeted. It was odd to be climbing stairs up carpet. I guess it's so executives won't have to scuff their shoes on tile.
At 54, I tried to run up to the last floor. But no dice.
My time was 12:50. I survived and was glad I did this unique race! But I'm pretty sure it'll take me a few days to get back to a normal running rhythm.
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