Tower Running Giving New Yorkers Another Opportunity To Get Competitive

[Photo via The Guardian]

If falling cranes weren't enough, a new sport ensures that New Yorkers will be fully one with their concrete jungle. Enter Tower Running, an emerging group competition that pits (wo)man's grit, determination, and shoddy knees against, well, slabs of ascending cement. If you listen very quietly, above the aches and groans, you can hear all the orthopaedic surgeons in Manhattan cheering. The biggest race in New York is hosted at the Empire State Building and was spearheaded by a 55 year old i-banker who turned his two adolescent sons on to the sport.

They now globe trot in search of the world's most punishing tower running races and whose priceless description rapidly goes from bad to horrendous: "It's not all that pleasant. After my first race, I puked in a garbage can. Everyone high-fived me. Think about the most painful thing you've ever done, then multiply by 10," Well then, seems like Tyler Durden-level masochism to me but, then again, forgoing my office elevator after lunch also sounds like lunacy, so what do I know?