The Empire State Building is a distinctive New York City landmark and one of the most famous buildings in the world. Over 3 million visitors make their way to the skyscraper each year to enjoy panoramic views of New York City and the surrounding areas from the 86th and 102nd floor observatory decks. The building also holds an annual running event each year called the Empire State Building Run-Up. It’s a race where runners run up 1,576 steps to the 86th floor observation deck. The race covers roughly 1/5 mile, up to a height of 1,050 feet.
The Empire State Building Run-Up was first held in 1978. Fred Lebow, founder of the New York Marathon and past president of the New York Road Runners Club, conceived the idea. It was part of an effort to bring more publicity to the sport of running. The winners of the inaugural Run-Up race in 1978 were Gary Muhrcke, who also won the first New York Marathon in 1970, and Marcy Schwamm.
The Empire State Building Run-Up is the most well known stair race and the oldest of its kind. The race is by invitation only. The New York Runners Club selects the runners for the race. Approximately 500 apply each year and about 300 are selected for the race. The participants include runners from other types of races and also regular New York citizens. Despite it not being a long distance race it is considered to be a very challenging event, in some ways tougher than a marathon. Runners have to go hard and give maximum effort all the way up to the top of the stairs. The top athletes and runners combine speed, strength and endurance.
The record holders for the fastest times ever are Paul Crake, professional cyclist from Australia at 9 minutes and 33 seconds set in 2003, and Austria’s Andrea Mayr won the women’s race in 2006 with a time of 11 minutes and 23 seconds. Paul Crake and Al Waquie have both won the most Empire State Building Run-Up races. They each have won five races. Cindy Moll-Harris has won the women’s race four times.
The 32nd Empire State Building Run-Up race was held on February 3, 2009. Thomas Dold, a 24-year old student from Stuggart, Germany, won his fourth consecutive race with a time of 10 minutes, 7 seconds. Suzanne Walsham, a 35-year old Australian woman living in Singapore, won the woman’s race with a time of 13 minutes, 27 seconds. Both Dold and Walsham successfully defended their titles from the year before, and it was Walsham’s third win overall.
Suzanne Walsham’s 2009 win was quite an amazing feat. Early in the race she was pushed to the side of the stairway and hit the marble doorway. She fell and badly bruised her left knee and face. At the time she was in about the 20th position and the leaders of the race were several floors ahead of her. It is very difficult to pass runners in a stairwell, but she was able to do it, despite her being so behind in the race and being badly injured, and ended up winning the race by 13 seconds.