Saab Salomon Runners Step Up in Milan
News Release / 02.02.2010
Three of the Saab Salomon Outdoor Team recently travelled to Milan, Italy to take part in the first round of the 2010 Vertical World Circuit. Tower running is gaining a great foothold at the moment and has captured the imagination of athletes, media and wider business and charity sectors, with events such as Step Change and Vertical Rush now gaining many column inches and celebrity association.The serious side of the sport is where it is at right now however, and after a taster at the Vertical Rush event last year Ricky Lightfoot made the trip to Milan to compete in the 4th Vertical Sprint. With a first heat up the Pirelli building, 31 floors, 710 steps, followed by another heat - 39 floors and 866 steps on the Lombardy Region's spectacular new headquarters, it was going to be a tough day at the office!
Anna Frost is still coming back down to earth after her historic run at the Everest Marathon in December, 2009. There Frosty smashed the record by 27 minutes and finished 6th overall. Nat White was also having her first crack at the discipline of tower running and judging by her smile in most of the post-race photos it won't be her last!
For Ricky it was a tale of two races:
"The beginning of the first race was a real battle and that’s even before the race had begun! A mass start with 50 or so “Elite Athletes†trying to be the first through a two by two meter door way was guaranteed to be eventful. There was a false start, a few athletes stopped and almost everyone else seemed to carry on, so before I knew it I was down in about 30th position before I had even ran 10 yards! I began my struggle to get back to the front knowing only the top 30 fastest times would qualify for the next round which was the Altra Sede, the new building of 39 floors and 866 steps.
I slowly progressed to the top 15 as people began to struggle by half way, the last few athletes were really hard to pass, so you just had to more or less run through them… They showed their dislike by giving me elbows in the face and chest and shouting obscenities, which made me more determined to get past the., I eventually reached the finish on to the 31st floor in 5th position about 20 seconds behind the winner Thomas Dold, so all in all I was pleased with the first race considering I started back in about 30th!
What I didn’t know was that both times were to be combined for the final result, so with starting so far back I was always going to have a lot of time to make up. The second stair race was a staggered start so the top 30 athletes were set off at intervals of 30 seconds and could be watched on a large screen in the reception area. The Altra Sede was still to be finished so the stair case was a bit grim and dusty. I set off running hard to the bottom of the stair case, trying not to look at the floor numbers and using the hand rail to pull myself up when my legs were beginning to fail. I reached the 35 floor a bit dizzy and gasping for air, and knew I was only seconds from the finish, putting another burst in to cross the line on the veranda 161 meters up.
