It watches over the city like a giant. Other buildings around it seem part of a miniature world, as if they are just buildings that have stopped growing. The Taipei 101 literally towers above everything else: a huge, imposing building in the capital of Taiwan, which you can see from many sides in the surrounding area. It is 508 meters high. With 101 floors. And 2046 steps in the stairwell. They are not necessarily intended to be walked up one after the other. Unless you’re a tower runner. Then you want nothing else, then you have to conquer those steps, then you are eager to storm the stairway to the top. Such as the German Verena Schmitz, who finished fourth at the World Tower Running Championships.
Schmitz has been seriously involved in tower running since 2019. Climbing stairs, as quickly as possible, and preferably in tall buildings of the iconic kind: the Shanghai Tower (632 meters, 119 floors, 3398 stairs), the Empire State Building (381 meters, 86 floors, 1576) and the 101 in Taipei, where the World Championships were held on May 4th. The 40-year-old German had already qualified for the event five years ago, but it was canceled due to the Covid pandemic. A year before, in 2018, her tower running career started after a remark of her father. “While we were standing at the observation desk of the test tower (TK Elevator Test Tower, DtG) during a family outing in Rottweil, my father asked if we knew that there were competitions in which people climbed such towers at certain speed.
That same year I registered with my father and one of my brothers.” Verena came eighth and decided to start training.
Apartment block
Initially, training simply started in her own apartment complex, on her own stairs. “98 steps,” she immediately sums up. “That sometimes caused strange looks. Fortunately, I can now often train in a tower in Singen, with 18 floors and 367 steps. That’s half an hour by train from where I live.” A year after the family weekend and with a lot of training in her legs, Schmitz won the same race in Rottweil and she was approached by Towerrunning Germany if she wanted to participate in more competitions all over the world. “And then I thought: why not? Let’s have some fun and see all those places all over the world,” says Schmitz, who works as a sports therapist and movement analyst to finance her sport.
In Taipei, the participants climbed the stairs one by one, with a short pause between every start. The organization thought one trip up was not enough and had decided to flog the participants’ legs extra. After the first 2,046 steps (to the 91st floor, not to the 101st), the competitors were taken back by elevator and had to climb another 59 floors of 1,340 steps. Schmitz was the first to leave because of her first place in the international ranking. “What an amazing experience to start with bib number 1,” said the German, who therefore had to get up early. “The match started at 8am. I was already in the hotel lobby at 6.15…”
She finished fourth, with a total time of 15.26.08, missing the third place by one second, but was still satisfied with her performance. “To be so close is of course very unfortunate, the second part was tough, but so be it. I’m happy with the result. A week before I did a race in Spain, which did not go well. I was 12 seconds slower there than in the same race a year earlier. I thought about that quite a bit and had to push some thoughts away and focus on the world championship. That worked.”
Handrail
You might say that a staircase is a staircase. But tower runners know that every staircase, every building is different. “I think the 101 is really fun,” says Schmitz about the tower in Taipei, where a spherical weight hangs in the top, a kind of mass damper, to move counterclockwise during earthquakes and thus absorb the vibrations. “But the steps are a bit further apart and I’m just a small woman…! It is useful if you are strong in your arms and hands as well, because you can also use the handrail to pull yourself a little up.”
The competitions and distances (or in this case height and number of stairs) also differ. “With the Empire State Building Run-Up we all start at the same time. There, sixteen elite women sprint at the same time towards the door of the stairwell. Some people go way too fast in the beginning. It is important to find your rhythm, you will catch up with those fast starters eventually.”
Because tower running is often not even running, it is just walking a bit faster. “Otherwise you really can’t last,” says Schmitz, who prefers races with more than 1,000 steps. “I’m not a sprinter, haha. I often pass up races of around 200 steps.” An escalator or elevator, used by most people in everyday life, for example to easily float to the next platform at the train station, is mostly ignored by tower runners. The calf muscles and upper legs of a tower runner prefers to climb the steps, propelled by their own power rather than by any electronic mechanism. “Some people ask if I have gone crazy. But no: I’m not crazy! I really enjoy doing this. I’ve been to Shanghai, New York, Warsaw. It is a unique way to discover the cities and the buildings. Most of the stairs are closed on a normal day. They open up, especially for us.”
