Local runners head to New York City

BY JIM CNOCKAERT
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

BRISTOL, Va. – When Paul McNamara and Richard Myers dash into the stairwell on the ground floor of the Empire State Building on Tuesday morning, they won’t be alone.

As they make their way up 86 flights of stairs – they’re determined to run the 1,576 steps of the New York City landmark without stopping – they won’t be doing it alone.

And when they dash out onto the observation deck, they won’t cross the finish line alone.

That’s because, McNamara and Myers insist, this run isn’t about them. Sure, it started as a personal challenge. And, yes, they’ve done all the training. And, yes, there will be 298 other runners climbing the stairs, too.

But this is about the kids – their own and the nearly 200 others who attend Sullins Academy, the private academy in Bristol, Va., where McNamara is a teacher and coach.

McNamara, 39, and Myers, 42, have always been physically active, and competing in this event is their way of demonstrating to the Sullins Academy kids that fitness is for life and that a person is never too old to take on a new challenge – no matter how steep it might be.

“We wanted to motivate the kids at school,” McNamara said. “We’re not spring chickens, but we’re doing this.

“A lot of kids these days think they’re done with physical fitness after their freshman year in high school. They’re not. I think this is a good example to the kids.”
If Friday’s send-off at Sullins is any indication, the kids got the message. They appear to be just as excited about running up the Empire State Building as the two men are.

As the duo left the school, they walked down hallways lined with cheering children offering high fives. Many of McNamara’s fellow teachers were crying. The sign at the entrance to the school wished the two men luck.

“Other than the births of my two children, it was the most emotional thing that’s ever happened to me,” McNamara said.

The two men are taking the kids with them in more than just spirit. During the run, they will wear Sullins T-shirts that have been signed by every student at the school.

And that, both men said, is wholly appropriate, because, without the kids, it’s unlikely that either of them would be in run in the first place.

McNamara, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, who played soccer at King College and Virginia Intermont, first learned about the run up the Empire State Building last summer when he visited the Manhattan landmark with his parents and brother, Phillip, the women’s soccer coach at Carson-Newman College.

Once McNamara made up his mind to try it, he enlisted Myers, a plumbing contractor who lives in Piney Flats, Tenn., as a partner.

The two men didn’t know each other all that well – though their 4-year-old daughters, Claire and Skye, are good friends in pre-school at Sullins – but McNamara knew that Myers, a one-time competitive body-builder, likes to run road races.

“It probably took me a matter of minutes to make up my mind,” Myers said. “My first thought was: That sounds crazy. But, then I thought, that sounds like a pretty cool challenge, to climb 86 floors.”

The Empire State Building Run-Up, now in its 32nd year, is sponsored by the New York Road Runners. The club gets thousands of applications each year for the event. Only 300 runners are selected.

To make the field, McNamara and Myers knew they had to make their application stand out, so they attached a cover letter, explaining that they want to run the stairs as an inspiration to the Sullins students.

“Our story was unique,” McNamara said. “That’s what got us in.”

The two only found out they’d been accepted in early January, but they’ve been training for four months. They felt they had to be ready physically and mentally, even though they understood there was good chance they’d do it all for nothing.

“Our goal is to get to the top without stopping,” they said.

The men trained by running the stairwell at the 10-story Holiday Inn in Bristol, Va., every other day. They’d run the 10 flights, stretch as they rode down in the elevator, then run the circuit again. They’d do that 16 times for each workout, to nearly double the numbers of flights they will run on Tuesday morning.

“I used to run the hills around here before we started doing stairs, and it’s not the same workout,” McNamara said. “Running stairs is an aerobics workout and a weight-training workout. You’ve got to rest on the days you’re not doing stairs.”

McNamara and Myers have experimented with pace and speed. They tried taking two steps at a time, but discovered they got tired twice as quickly. They also learned that there are six variations of stairs in the Empire State Building.

So they will take each flight one step at a time, and they will avoid using the handrails. That’s their way of getting into rhythm, they said.

“When you’re running a long road race, you get into a zone where you get a second wind and can keep going,” McNamara said. “The hardest thing about stairs is that when you turn a corner, you see the numbers on the doors. Psychologically, that really messes with your head.”

Myers added: “Your brain is telling you to stop, and you’re trying to keep going. You think you’re making real good progress, and then you see you’re not as far as you thought.”

The two have watched video of past races, and they worry that the stairwells will get congested. But, for the first time this year, each runner will wear a computer chip that will help to clock finishing times. Myers said he hopes that means race officials will space out the competitors rather than turning them loose in packs.

The record run up the Empire State Building is 9 minutes, 33 seconds – set in 2003. Last year’s winning time was 10:08.

McNamara and Myers hope to finish in 17-18 minutes. That’s based on recent test runs the two made in a 20-story building in Knoxville, Tenn., where they clocked 2:30 on every climb to the top.

“We know we can do a good race, depending on traffic,” McNamara said. “We just don’t want to get stuck behind someone who has not trained.”

The two have gotten more than a little help in this endeavor. A parent from Sullins was able to arrange for sponsorships that paid for their flights to and from New York City. Officials at the Bristol Holiday Inn were able to get them discounted rates at a hotel in downtown Manhattan. They leave this morning and are returning Tuesday evening after the run.

“I’ve never been to New York, so it’s going to be like a trip to Disney World,” Myers said.

McNamara has been there twice, but he said he imagines the race will add a much different dimension to this one.

“That building is so big and so awesome, it will be like seeing it for the first time,” he said. “I mean, 1,200 feet straight up. It is so amazing.”

jcnockaert@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2572