Stair-crazy up the Empire State Building

STAIRWELL racing is one of the weirdest ways to see New York, but that doesn't stop 180 athletes from running up the 1576 steps of the Empire State Building.

MARTIN Holder is very proud of being the godfather of our eldest son. But he is much prouder of being violently sick at the top of the Eighth Wonder of the World.

It is one of the most memorable things he has done. New York took his breath away as well as most of the contents of his stomach. His godson is very proud to have a godfather who has vomited off a very famous skyscraper.

We fancied a "boys' break" and, knowing he would be up for it because he is fit and even at 40-something is still jogging in an impressively sprightly way, I suggested that we go to New York to watch the annual Empire State Building vertical marathon.

He turned down the invitation point blank. He didn't want to watch. He wanted to compete in it. And he immediately got down to some serious training to scale new heights of personal athletic achievement.

Vertical marathons may not have achieved official Olympic recognition but there is a growing worldwide circuit of organised runs up the staircases of some of the world's most famous and tallest buildings: Sydney, Moscow, Vienna, Detroit, Toronto and Munich have all hosted their own vertical marathons and they are open to anyone who wants to achieve something most people are too sensible to want to achieve.

Bangkok's Westin Banyan Tree Hotel hosts an annual race up its 1093 steps. Singapore's 226m 73-storey Swissotel The Stamford Hotel - the tallest hotel in South-East Asia - stages a race every November. The best time is six minutes 55 seconds set by Balvinder Singh.

The Empire State Building was opened in May 1931. It took one year and 45 days to build. The framework went up 4½ storeys every week. It has 1860 steps, 6500 windows, five entrances, 73 lifts, two banks, three coffee shops, 250 permanent staff and, every February, 180 upwardly mobile and perhaps mentally unbalanced athletes run up the 1576 steps of the world's third-highest building.

The race begins in the lobby on 36th St and Fifth Ave and ends on the observatory deck on the 86th floor. The Empire State Run-up is the oldest of all vertical marathons and the most prestigious.

Andrea Mayr holds the women's record time of 11 minutes 51 seconds. The best men's time is held by five-time winner Paul Crake who scaled the stairwell in 2003 in 9 minutes 33 seconds. In 2007, Suzy Walsham, an Australian living in Singapore, won the women's race and Germany's Thomas Dold the men's.

Martin's race began three months early, up and down the staircase in his home. Practice facilities being rather low on the ground elsewhere, he ran up and down his 12-step staircase 500 times a day.

Showing immense dedication and signs of insanity he then moved to a local multistorey car park, progressing on to the maintenance stairwell of a tunnel.

He began to talk a good run-up: "I have run plenty of normal marathons and a lot of cross-country but vertical marathons require work on certain muscle groups."

Presumably, not the brain. He decided to raise money for Save The Children and The Catherine Wyatt Fund, set up in memory of a university friend who died suddenly. He wanted to see New York from a different perspective.

The big day came. Each contestant pays a $30 entry fee.

The professionals go first.

"The starting pistol fired and off we went, unceremoniously jostling and shoulder barging each other out of the way in a huge crush, in a desperate attempt to get first to the small-framed door to the staircase," he remembers. "Then it was stair-crazy all the way. I had expected a nosebleed or a stitch but all I got was sore thumbs swinging around the handrails from floor to floor."

The Empire State Run is essentially a road race with handrails.

Vertical marathon running is still an amateur sport. There are no cash prizes. The top three usually receive a commemorative medal and a return flight to compete the next year. They have to pay all their other expenses. My man Martin finished 51st in New York in a time of just over 14 minutes. That was 15 minutes quicker than the oldest man in the race, 85-year-old former opera singer Chico Scorone who has run the race for 10 years.

Apart from a congratulatory cuddle from a King Kong lookalike, the only things our eldest son's godfather received for his exertions was a complimentary T-shirt, a Swatch, a sticky bun to replenish his sugar blood levels and rehydration in a wobbly paper cup, and an all-expenses-paid ride down to ground level in one of the Empire State Building's elevators.

This year's Empire State Building Run-Up takes place on February 5.

Visit the New York Road Runners.