For those who don't know the Swissotel is a 226m hotel building in the heart of Singapore. At one stage it used to be the largest building in Singapore but I'm pretty certain it has been overtaken now by some of the buildings in the banking district. Below is a picture of the Swissotel from the base, highlighting the daunting task ahead of me.
My age group for the run was the 20 - 29 group, which was great but it's going to be depressing next year when I'm in the 30 something age group. I arrived at the Swissotel about an hour before my race just to ensure I had time to warmup and have a look round.
Prior to the race we could get free drinks of water and red bulls, there was a guy on the speaker constantly telling people to make sure they drink plenty of water because you couldn't take water in the stairs. It was fair enough, but the guy on the speaker wasn't the one who was going to be running and the last thing I wanted was to be 36 stories up and busting for the toilet.
Half a bottle of water later I was in line waiting for our turn to start the run. Whilst waiting in line I found out that the winner in this age group last year did the run in 7 minutes and 50 seconds, wow that was impressive but not as impressive as the world record of 6 minutes 46 seconds. After hearing those fantastic times my personal goal of running it in under 15 minutes wasn't as impressive.
Eventually after a bit of queuing it was my groups turn to take off. We where partnered in groups of 6 to obviously reduce the congestion in the stairwell. "Ten Seconds" the marshall yelled at us, great time to turn on the tunes on my iPhone. I had decided to run with my phone for inspirational music and it was full of great music.
I figured my starting track would be "Shooting Stars" by the Bag Raiders which has a good beat to it. Unfortunately something went wrong on my phone and with ten seconds till I start running I had this blasted down my earphones "IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP, if you wanna rock 'n' roll". Damn you AC/DC, DAMN YOU!
Well no time to waste fiddling with my music the starter gun had gone. The 6 other people I was grouped with shot off like a greyhound out of the starters gate. Me, I shot off like my dad's greyhound..... slow. We had to run about 50 meters to the start of the stairwell and I was dead last in the pack. After what seemed like an eternity my heart rate had rocketed to a steady 181bpm, I was sweating, my legs where full of lactic acid and I saw the sign I had been waiting for..... Floor number "1". Yes! 1 floor down 72 to go.
My strategy for the race was just to take the stairs two at a time all the way to the top. By the 20th floor I was overtaking some of the people who were in my group and then I started overtaking people in the previous group. By the halfway mark I had overtaken quite a few people but here is where I hit my first mental hurdle.
From the 1st level to the 37th level the stairwell had gone clockwise which was great because it was the same as the stairwell in my apartment. But suddenly the stairwell changed slightly and we started going up anti-clockwise. WHAT!!! I hadn't trained for anti-clockwise, was my legs up to the turning to the left instead of the right? Could I still help myself up with the rail using my left hand not my right hand? Was the left side of my brain up to the challenge?
I pushed through the mental block of the 37th floor, by the 40th floor I was finally back in my stride of 2 steps at a time. Eventually I reached floor number 70, you could feel the air get hotter so I knew I was close to the helipad. The last 3 floors seemed to take longer than waiting at a fast food restaurant behind a deaf man who's being served by an immigrant.
Finally I hit the bright sunlight and past the last step, there was the finish line only about 10 meters in front. I tried to jog but I'm sure I only achieved more of a drunken stumble. I had made it, I was on top of the Swissotel! My watched said I did it in 13:02 which I was wrapped about, I'm hopeful though my official time will be lower (since I stopped my watch late).
On top of the hotel we were allowed to spend about 10 minutes to recover, have a drink and take some photos. It was an amazing view from the top, unfortunately there is a bit of a haze in Singapore at the moment but never less it still made for some great photos.
After roughly 10 minutes I headed back down to the ground floor (by elevator thankfully). Overall it was a really well run event and I am definitely going to do it again next year.
