When my alarm went off at 6:15 Sunday morning, my wife rolled over and said maybe we should rethink our plan to take all four kids to the Kohls Step Up For Kids stair climb up the AON center. This is an annual event for me, but this year I wanted to bring the kids along. I thought they'd enjoy the view from the top. So as we got up and ready, we rallied to get the kids dressed and into the car. Oh, the challenges of family life!!
The AON stair climb has always been special to us. ABC-7 is one of the sponsors, and I have the honor of recording the public service announcements for it every year. As you probably know, the AON building is the second tallest in Chicago (after the Willis Tower). Five years ago, I did the climb with our then 6 week old daughter Lorna in a front carrier. So, I wanted to bring Lorna along this year to show her what it was all about. She is five years old now, however, so I wasn't about to carry her!
Lorna is on the far right in the silhouette picture of the four kids we took from the top.
Of course, the family outing meant I was rushing to get to the start on time. I made it, but without time to pin on my number and timing tag. They were kind enough to let me go ahead with out them, but I was left to time the effort on my own watch. And considering how I kind of took it easy on the way up, it's probably good that my time isn't public. As a matter of fact, it isn't even private, because I forgot to stop my watch when I got to the top. Regardless, I was happy to finish, as you can tell from the picture my wife took.
The climb itself gets better every year. There were nearly 2000 finishers this year, and they raised several hundred thousand dollars for Children's Memorial Hospital. I got to meet a young man this year who owes his life to the work done by doctors at Children's 14 years ago. He and his family were among the climbers, and he finished with an impressive time.
Of course, this blog is about running, not stair climbing. But climbing stairs seems to be a great aerobic workout. I ran a pretty good 12 miler on Saturday, but was breathing much harder after finishing the stair climb Sunday.
It's probably similar to intervals on the track for getting your heart rate going. And that leads me to what I saw on my way to meeting friends for that long run Saturday morning. The York high school track team was doing speed work on the outdoor track which was covered by snow and ice. Now that's dedication! If anyone questions how they develop such great distance runners every year, that is part of the answer.
It's probably good inspiration for many of us who are having a hard time getting out the door as the winter drags on. As for me, motivation is coming in the form of a spring marathon. More on that in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, congratulations to all who climbed and raised money Sunday! You can find the results here:
http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?orgID=234623&rsID=89030
See you on the roads... or stairs!
I stand corrected. The AON is now the third tallest building in the city! (Trump is 2nd) Thanks, Jay
Posted by: John | February 01, 2010 at 02:23 PM