Trying to Move Forward While the World Grinds to a Halt

I’ve never blogged during a global pandemic before! There are first times for everything.

What a depressing couple of weeks it’s been, thanks to the coronavirus and all the awful news that’s resulted because of it. On the whole, I’m in really good shape. There have been no confirmed diagnoses for anyone in my life that I know of. (Then again,

My One-Mile Trek Into the Sky (Trek Up The Tower Race Recap)

It takes a special kind of nutjob to compete in a vertical mile stair race, because the goal is completely nutty: to climb stairs until you reach one mile of vertical gain. It’s a lot of stairs. Think about how the second floor of your house may be 10 feet off the ground, and compare that to the finish line for this race being one mile off the ground. It’s exhausting just to think about, and as someone who accomplished a vertical mile yesterday, I can tell you it’s way more exhausting in real life. So, yea, I guess that makes me a nutjob… but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

There aren’t any staircases that stretch a mile into the sky, so a vertical mile stair race has to happen in a skyscraper, with participants climbing those stairs over and over again.

Yippie-Ki-Yay, My First Power Hour of 2020! (Oakbrook Terrace Fight For Air Climb Race Recap)

It’s the weekend… time for a stair race! This one was a Power Hour, in a 31-story skyscraper. So the question isn’t ‘How fast did I make it to the top?’ It’s ‘How many times did I climb it in an hour?’

The race was the Fight For Air Climb, put on by and benefiting the Greater Chicago chapter of the American Lung Association. It happened

I Felt Like a Total Moron At My First 2020 Race… But At Least I Have a Good Story to Tell! (Bop to the Top Race Recap)

My goal for 2020 is to compete in five stair races I’ve never done before, in cities where I’ve never raced before. I’m already 20% done with my goal, because on January 18th, I competed in the 37th annual Bop to the Top in Indianapolis. It’s one of the oldest stair races in the country, in the second-tallest building in Indiana, OneAmerica Tower.

OneAmerica Tower is 38 stories, but the race is 36, with a total of 780 steps. When you register, you can sign up for a Single Climb, or the Triple Step, which is three climbs. I signed up for both. If I’m driving five hours each way to compete, I want to compete as much as I can! Add up the two events, and that’s four climbs up the stairwell. 144 floors. 3,120 steps. But, due to a ridiculously stupid and completely avoidable mistake on my part, I ended up climbing even more than that!

I Crunched the Numbers, and My #40years40races Challenge Statistics are Jaw-Dropping!

The biggest fitness challenge of my life is over. A couple weeks ago, I completed my #40years40races challenge. It wore me down, and wore me out, but I am so incredibly proud. Proud doesn’t begin to cover it. I raced more in 2019 than I did in 2018 and 2017 combined. In fact, 1/3rd of all the races I’ve done in my adult life (since 2011) were raced as part of this challenge. I’ve done things I’ve never done before, and set all sorts of personal records. Plus, I finished my challenge on November 23rd, with over a month to spare before the end of the year!

Those are all the medals I earned this year. 31 of them! (Not every race has medals.) They look even better all spread out on the table.

I Finished My #40years40races Challenge With One Helluva Great Race! (Gift Of Adoption Michigan Stair Climb Race Recap)

Check this out: It’s my first-ever FIRST PLACE MEDAL! 

I won first place among men aged 40-49 at the Gift of Adoption Michigan Stair Climb in Southfield, Michigan on Saturday, and it was a total surprise when they called my name during the awards ceremony. I was already on cloud nine, having finished my 40th and final race of the year just minutes before, and being handed that medal was

My First Third Place Medal at a Stair Race! (Steeltown Stair Climb Race Recap)

Four minutes and fifty-two seconds. It only took four minutes and fifty seconds to accomplish something I’ve never accomplished before: My first age group podium finish at a stair race!

I’ll get into all the juicy details in a bit. First, let me back up a few hundred steps. On Saturday, I competed in the Steeltown Stair Climb, a stair race in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada that benefited The Lung Association. It was my second race in Canada – after the CN Tower race in April – and my third international race!

I Just Want To Be Able To Move After This! (SkyRise Chicago 2019 Race Recap)

Hello, Willis Tower!

You may know this towering skyscraper as Sears Tower. I know it as the home to the tallest stairwell in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest stair race, too!

SkyRise Chicago, which benefits the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, has a start line two floors below ground, and a finish line on the 103rd floor. There’s 105 floors, and 2,159 steps, in between.

Racing Up The Tallest* Outdoor Stairway in Michigan! (Pine Mountain 500 Race Recap)

*probably

Last weekend I competed in my 29th race of the year, and my second in Michigan’s gorgeous – and incredibly remote – Upper Peninsula. I earned the biggest, heaviest finisher’s medal I’ve ever seen!

The race was called the Pine Mountain 500, and it was held at the Pine Mountain Ski Resort in Iron Mountain. There’s a ski jump there, and alongside the jump is a 500-step stairway.

Where’s the Elevator Down? (The Inclinator Race Recap)

One week ago, I stumbled across a stair race online. I hadn’t heard about it before. I signed up. It was on a whim, but the race was different and cheap ($15). It was called the Inclinator, and this little race ended up being one of the toughest events I’ve ever done.

I’m showing off my bib number – they wrote it on my arm with a Sharpie. Good ol’ lucky number 7!

The Inclinator event happened at the Stairs on Division, a public stairway going up a hillside in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had never been to these stairs before, but they remind me of