This was published 8 years ago
How to climb a skyscraper
Considering racing up the 1500-plus steps of Sydney Tower, or Eureka Tower? Canberra's Mark Bourne has some advice.
By Mark Saunokonoko
Competitive stair running doesn't give a damn how fit you are, so the theory goes. You only find out if you'll be any good once you're ascending the claustrophobic spine of a beastly skyscraper that very first time, step by step, clamouring for air and the way out.
Australian Mark Bourne is one of the world's great tower runners. To make it up the planet's tallest buildings and iconic superstructures like the Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower and Taipei 101, Bourne recommends not starting too hard and avoiding looking at floor numbers in the stairwell. Both will break you, one way or another.
Mark Bourne climbing the stairs of Sydney Tower: his aerobic capacity has been likened to that of a Tour de France cyclist. Credit: Nic Walker
"I have a very high pain threshold," Bourne says. "Just running along on a straight flat surface doesn't bring out the best in me." He talks about going up the way most runners look forward to coasting down.
Bourne, who works as an ecologist for the federal government, is a champion cross-country and mountain runner. He stands 175 centimetres, with a greyhound-like physique.
His home town of Canberra, surrounded by hilly tracks, has long produced Australia's finest stair runners. The trailblazer was Paul Crake, who won the Empire State Building race (86 floors, 1576 steps) five times. Scott McTaggart and David Osmond, both accomplished mountain runners from the ACT, followed.
"There really is nothing quite like it," Bourne says of his sport. "You've got no option but to lift your leg up to that next stair." He'll hit his physical threshold as early as 15 floors into an 80-floor race, the point where heart rates max out at 190 beats per minute and mind games kick in.
"The key to mental toughness is enjoyment, how much you love what you're doing," says Philo Saunders, an Australian Institute of Sport physiologist. Saunders has tested Bourne in the lab and likens his aerobic capacity to a Tour de France cyclist.
Bourne's first stair race was the Sydney Tower (100 floors, 1504 steps) in 2009, finishing second to the then world champion, Germany's Thomas Dold. He won his very next event at Melbourne's Eureka Tower (88 floors, 1642 steps).
In 2013, Bourne was crowned champion of the brutal Vertical World Circuit, which is now a collection of nine races around the globe. He's never finished lower than third in 31 starts across four continents.
Tomorrow, Bourne is chasing a fourth consecutive victory in Sydney Tower's annual event, where about 30 of the world's elite stair racers will be joined by more than 1000 runners taking on the vertical torture chamber for charity.
Predictably, Bourne says the most common question he's asked is if he uses the stairs on every occasion. "I'm actually quite happy to take the lift."