Fight for Air – 2017
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Today was the 2017 “Fight for Air Climb”. This is the stair climb up the Aon building in downtown Los Angeles. This was the first stair climb I ever did, back in 2009. And even though this marks the ninth time I’m doing this event, I’m not really trying to compete seriously any more. I’ve built a whole social circle in this sport, and I’ve gotten some recognition for making charts of the staircases, so I still like doing them just for the physical challenge, and to see all my friends there.
When it was time to go, I started my watch. My target pace was the same as I used in 2013, when I did a Vertical Mile in the Aon building one evening during a practice session. As it turns out, the climb from the ground up to the 4th floor is almost exactly the equivalent of four regular floors in the building, so I just aimed to check my watch at 4 1/2, 9, 13 1/2 and so on, and I managed to keep those markers right on the one-minute boundaries. The 1,393 steps to the roof works out to be the equivalent of 63.3 regular floors in that building. When I got near the top, I saw I was closing in on 14 minutes, which was pretty much right on target, since 9 times 7 is 63, and I was aiming to be doing 9 floors every two minutes. I tried to run right at the end to try and make the roof just under 14 minutes, but that didn’t quite work out. But my time of 14:02 was not bad for just taking it (relatively) easy.
My main criterion these days for measuring these things is to look at the results and see how many people my age or older went faster. If I can count them on the fingers of one hand, that’s a good day. And today, there was only one. So this was a good outing.
Results are here: https://my.racewire.com/results/33305/37785
