The first thing I noticed is how old I am, 75. 750 men and women all in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. This is a youngster’s sport. The race is at Key Bank downtown Clevleland next to the Mariott hotel where the race is staged. I got there at 7:15 to allow time to warm up. Lots of people walking around multiple ballrooms. All I wanted was a men’s room to change into my running clothes. Since I was already half dressed with my shorts on, I just found a corner to put on my shirt, shoes, timing band and gloves. I could not find a water fountain. No problem Cleveland water has a table set up. I ask for water…”We don’t have any, it’s upstairs”. Go figure. I keep going up and down stairs to get warmed up but it does not feel like I am there yet. Someone ask me “Are you doing stairs already?”. I ignore them. I ask one of the Lung Cancer people where the Ultimate Climbers line up and she says just follow her. There are five of us. I recall seven registered. We take the long walk from the Mariott to Key Bank. We begin to line up and I hang out to be last. I like having someone in front of me. They send us up at 10 second intervals. As it turns out there is one guy behind me. He quickly passes me. The runners are going at a very fast pace. I am thinking do they know it is how many times you can climb 54 floors in one hour. I settle into a pace just on the edge of blowing up. I notice the stairwell is narrow enough to use two arms to climb, pulling me along double stepping. There are water stations every 10 floors with people cheering. I find them a distraction. One of them asks me to look up for the picture which I ignore. I have realized over the past year that it is taking me longer to warm up in a race. It doesn’t matter if it is a training run or race…it just seems to take about 10 floors to find my rhythm. No amount of warm up seems to help. It appears to be just one of the changes as one gets older. I finish the first 54 floors and finally feel I am in my groove. I am frustrated it took so long. The elevator ride back down seems to take forever. I am the only one going down. I begin the second climb. Half way up I hear someone right behind me. It is Jill Paha, the number one woman stair racer in the U.S. I don’t know where she ranks in the world, might be #1 there to. I swing left to let her pass. She is flying up the stairs. I am nearing the top floor when I hear one of the climbers say he is done. I don’t know how many times he has climber but it looks like it is about two. I take the elevator for the second time to being my third climb. The stairwell is empty for floor after floor. The only way I know I am still in the race are the water stations every ten floors. Somewhere near the end one of the volunteers announces there is five minutes left. I really push the pace. There is no way I am not going to get all three climbs in under one hour. Someone else is behind me but I just keep accelerating. I cross the timing mat and grab my medal. Everything hurts. I pause for a minute alone in a corner before going back down. I am in tears. I don’t remember it hurting this much. I gather myself together for the offical start of the single climb offered as an option after the Ultimate Climb. There are somewhere near 750 people scheduled to climb. They begin to announce the waves to begin climbing. Everyone is assigned a wave. I walk in pass through the climbers in line and line up with the elites who climb first, but I line up last. There is no way I am letting myself cool down before another climb. I begin and immediately fall into a nice pace. I begin thinking why is this so easier then the power hour? Some climbers pass me in the beginning only to have them blow up about half way. I see people falling aside off the stairwell to catch their breath. There are two men behind me really struggling. I notice how loud their breathing is while I am just cruising along. It occurs to me I am doing a reckless pace. Don’t you know how fast you are going. You are going to blow up. But the blow up never happens. I am praying, and I hear a message inside my head…”Just go”. I hear music and cheering. I notice the stairwell narrowing. How can this be so early in the climb? Then I realize I am almost at the finish. I cross the mat and try to grab another medal but they say only one per runner. I feel much better than I did after the Ultimate Climb. Strange. I return to the ballroom and get the free engraving for my medal. “Jeff Bolek, 03/01/2026, 4 times, 216 floors, Key Tower”.

But the important thing is the statistics. In 2024, two years ago, I completed three climbs in 52:53:23. In 2025 I did two climbs in 36:40:27. I can’t recall why I only did two. But at that pace three climbs would have been about 54:60. This year I did three climbs at 53:16:65, so I was faster than last year. In fact 52:53 is awfully close to 53 mintues, so by that rating I did the same as two years ago. But, on the hurt scale it was off the charts. Someone said getting old is not for sissies…..