Dold, Moon Win Empire State Building Run-Up, PSA's Illingworth Finishes 27th
from NYRR Media
February 9, 2012 - Melissa Moon and Thomas Dold have both broken the tape at the top of the Empire State Building before—but not at night, and not with the competition this close behind them, and not at the front of a field of 666 finishers—226 more than ever before in the race’s 35-year history. Another record was set by the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, the race’s sponsor, whose PowerTeam members raised more than $500,000 with their efforts here.
The PSA's Julian Illingworth finished in 7th place in the Unseeded Timed division, and a respectable 27th overall, with a time of 13:10.
Moon, a 42-year-old New Zealander, made a big move on the 68th floor and ran away from a high-quality women’s field to win her second title. Four women stayed together to the 48th floor, where Moon and three-time winner Suzy Walsham of Singapore broke away. “At 68 floors, there’s a flat section where you cross between stairwells,” Moon said afterward. “Suzy and I reached that floor together and I thought, ‘All right, only 20 floors left,’ and I sprinted across and got the lead. I stayed ahead from there on.” She crossed the line with no one else in sight, as a light snow dusted the observation deck of NYC’s tallest building.
Moon’s time of 12:39 was a big improvement over her winning 13:13 from 2010. “I had more competition this time,” she said. Walsham finished second in 13:08, remaining one win short of American Cindy Harris’s women’s record of four victories. (Harris finished seventh this year.)
Dold, 27, of Germany, got a record seventh consecutive win, but his countryman Christian Riedl, 31, made it close. Reidl started conservatively and was in sixth place at halfway, but then he started passing people. “I finished my [physics] degree last year, and I’ve had more time to train,” he said. “At about 60 floors, I knew only Thomas was ahead. Near the end, I could hear him.” Reidl’s 10:36 clocking was nearly a minute faster than his third-place 11:29 in 2011—and only eight seconds behind Dold’s winning 10:28 this year.
Asked what has changed about the race since his first win, Dold was very specific: “The year has changed, my shoes have changed, and the starting time has changed. But the building hasn’t changed, and luckily, neither has the name of the winner.”
The third-fastest time among men was the 10:55 run by Mark Bourne, 28, of Australia, who won the unseeded time-trial section of the event, which went off after the men’s invitational race.
Third place in the women’s race went to a surprising last-minute entrant: four-time Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington of Great Britain, who was in New York to promote her new book when she heard about the race. (See our full story on Wellington.) She stayed with the leaders until past halfway and hung on to finish in 13:15. Why try such an unusual event with no preparation whatsoever? “I love challenges, and I couldn’t miss this opportunity. And I’m a masochist,” she said, smiling. “But I like to spread the effort out over more time. I think this was the most painful thing I’ve ever done!”
A special division of the event, contested among teams from local brokerage firms, was won by the CBRE team, led by Joe Walsh, 25, who ran 14:08. The MMRF also had its own division, led by Ka Ming Lam of Hong Kong, who ran an excellent 12:45. Brian Kuritzky, very close behind at 12:52, led all fundraisers with a total of $100,000!
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