Congrats to Rich, Josh and Kristy for representing in this 86-flight extravaganza!

• Josh finished in 14:30 (50th fastest man in his group, 5.9 floors/minute)
  
• Rich finished in 16:11 (8th fastest man in his group, 5.3 floors/minute)
  
• Kristy finished in 18:06 (38th fastest woman in her group, 4.8 floors/minute)
  

Full results are here...
http://web2.nyrrc.org...

...and here... (Rich's race)
http://web2.nyrrc.org...

...and here... (Josh and Kristy's race)
http://web2.nyrrc.org...

Thanks for posting the results Scott!

Great job to Josh and Kristy for representing at the Invitational Race. I would have been smoked had I been in that race.

It was definitely an amazing, different experience than other races I did. I was all anxious the night before; almost the same feeling I had when I did my first triathlon and marathon. I had no idea what to expect while climbing 86 flights of stairs and I definitely hadn't trained much leading up to this race.

When the race started everyone rushed into the stairwell which could fit only one at a time. Since it was so crowded (there were about 25 people ahead of me at the beginning), I was basically walking for the first 10 floors. When I got more room I switched over to walking up every other step and didn't really feel winded until I hit floor 50. When I got to 70 I turned it up a notch and I ended up being stuck behind two guys for the last 3 floors who beat me by just a couple of seconds. Using the banister was key in distributing the effort across my muscles, and i switched using the right, left and both for each floor.

I finished 16:11, which was exactly what Karen guessed I'd finished in. She did the race last year so gave me some pointers. At the top there were only 5 guys standing around and I thought everyone had already finished and went down. I didn't realize I was 8th place overall and finished 2nd place in my age group, missing first by only 2 seconds (it was that guy in front of me!).

Next time I'll push it harder at the beginning and try to get into the doorway at the beginning. I'll probably train a bunch more since I know I could have done so much better. It was nice to experience the preliminary race as my first time since it was only 71 people versus the insane crowded waves of the invitational. I hope we get more Whippets next year to do this! I was lucky and got to chat it up with a friend from PBDS and it definitely made the post-race experience a lot nicer.

I agree with Rich...everyone should give this race a try. The medal is pretty sweet! It was good to see Rich right before the start to give me some final words of encouragement. He had just run up 86 flights, but it looked like he just got there.

I was pretty hard on myself after the run because of the poor performance, but I had a great time. I messed up running it. I started too far in the back and it screwed me the whole way up. It is so hard to pass people and then once you hit the 40th floor you catch up to the women (they start 5 minutes before the men) and then it is even more impossible to pass anyone. Just not enough room on the stairs to pass slower women and slower men at the same time. You pretty much are stuck beind the person you were standing behind at the starting line. Because of that, I probably did over a minute slower than I could have done. I didn't even break a sweat.

There was a lot of nervous/fun energy in the room where you get ready. I takled toTim VanOrden for a while before the race. He was getting ready right next to me. He is a world class stair racer and only eats raw foods. For a guy that only ate like a rabbit, he is in pretty good shape. I followed his blog and youtube videos while preparing for this. It was fun to talk to him. Then when the gun goes off, it is kind of crazy...everyone sprinting to a tiny door, then waiting for their turn to walk through it. The whole race goes by really quickly and it is really funny to run from a hot stairway to a freezing observation deck. Right when you are happy about finishing they rush you right off the deck and right back inside.

I am ready to do it again next year to redeem myself.

Thanks for posting the results! I didn't quite beat my time from last year, but I also just found out that I have mono~ that will be my excuse. :) I guess that's what happens when you work with germy 2 year-olds all day! Everyone should definitely give the run-up a try at least once in their lifetime!

Congrats guys! Hey Josh you're in the video:
http://www.nyrr.org/r...

Also, Josh is in this Reuters video for a couple of seconds. I can totally see how you got screwed at the start, Josh:
http://www.youtube.co...

And I'm in the WNBC video in the background of a couple of clips!
http://www.nbcnewyork...

Thanks for posting the results Scott!

Great job to Josh and Kristy for representing at the Invitational Race. I would have been smoked had I been in that race.

It was definitely an amazing, different experience than other races I did. I was all anxious the night before; almost the same feeling I had when I did my first triathlon and marathon. I had no idea what to expect while climbing 86 flights of stairs and I definitely hadn't trained much leading up to this race.

When the race started everyone rushed into the stairwell which could fit only one at a time. Since it was so crowded (there were about 25 people ahead of me at the beginning), I was basically walking for the first 10 floors. When I got more room I switched over to walking up every other step and didn't really feel winded until I hit floor 50. When I got to 70 I turned it up a notch and I ended up being stuck behind two guys for the last 3 floors who beat me by just a couple of seconds. Using the banister was key in distributing the effort across my muscles, and i switched using the right, left and both for each floor.

I finished 16:11, which was exactly what Karen guessed I'd finished in. She did the race last year so gave me some pointers. At the top there were only 5 guys standing around and I thought everyone had already finished and went down. I didn't realize I was 8th place overall and finished 2nd place in my age group, missing first by only 2 seconds (it was that guy in front of me!).

Next time I'll push it harder at the beginning and try to get into the doorway at the beginning. I'll probably train a bunch more since I know I could have done so much better. It was nice to experience the preliminary race as my first time since it was only 71 people versus the insane crowded waves of the invitational. I hope we get more Whippets next year to do this! I was lucky and got to chat it up with a friend from PBDS and it definitely made the post-race experience a lot nicer.

Finally read this race report. Great job once again Rich, Josh, & Kristy!
The medal from the race is pretty nice, and is one of my favorite medals.

Rich: That chat you had with "the friend from PBDS", convinced him to join the Whippets that day, =).