Birthdate: 02 November 1959
What is your occupation? Computer system administrator
What/when was your first climb? April, 2009 - The LA Aon climb
How many climbs have you completed? 30 or so
Why/how did you start? I thought it would be an interesting physical challenge, and I wanted to get to stand on the roof of the AON building
Do you have a favorite climb? Why? The San Diego Towerthon. Traditionally, I’ve done better at things that are longer, as opposed to fast sprints.
Least favorite climb? Why? The San Diego ALA climb. At 34 stories, the building is just too short.
Why do you climb? It’s still an interesting physical challenge. And I’ve got a whole social circle out of doing this crazy sport. So it’s fun to visit and see everyone.
Are there other sports you’re passionate about? I ride my bike a lot. I’ve been a big cyclist since 1973.
Did you have injuries or issues you needed to overcome to climb? Not particularly.
How do you train? Riding my bike, doing practice climbs downtown when I can, and doing stairs at Millikan Library at Caltech.
Do you have a special relationship with any of your step-siblings? Susan Opas was the one who first told me how to find stair events, so she’s really the reason I got so involved in this crazy sport.
If we had numbers on our jerseys, what would your number be? I’d go with 101, since I climbed the Wilshire-Figueroa building 101 times in 2013.
Do you have a website or blog for those interested in learning more about you? www.1134.org. The website hasten by turn stair charts of over a dozen skyscrapers.
I started counting steps in 2012 when I was trying to work out the most efficient stepping patterns to take the minimum number of steps. The whole idea was to eliminate taking extra steps on the landings while turning. I figured that taking an extra step costs 1/2 second or so, and multiplying that by two landings per floor and 50-75 floors
adds up to some time.
So I worked out a pattern that worked on the Aon building stairs. A single foot on the landing, pivot, and start each flight left foot first. The pattern repeats, and has not wasted steps. So I started doing that in practice, and I started noticing that, while it was efficient, my left leg seemed to be working harder than the right. So I paid attention and noticed that the flights were 11 steps each. That meant doing three doubles with the left leg, and two doubles and a single on the right. So the left leg was working 20% harder than the
right. So then I figured out to just alternate putting the one single step at the beginning or the end of each 11-step flight. That alternates which leg is working harder. So now I do this change every five floors to even out the load on the legs.
So after I started thinking about stepping patterns, I started paying more attention to the step configurations, and I started wondering if the published step counts they had for the buildings were right. I saw that Kevin Crossman had made a detailed chart for the building he works and trains in, so I decided to try making one for the Aon building. I figured this would help with working out the best step patterns for the different sections of the staircase, and also would help for working out split times for pacing. So I walked up slowly on one of the practice nights, and I took detailed notes. And when I made
up the chart, I found that their published count of 1377 was wrong. As it turned out, George Grena later came and reviewed the staircase and found a couple of small errors in my chart.
