Take The Stairs Speaker Rory Vaden by Take The Stairs Speaker

This is a portion of the email that greeted me this morning:

January 21, 2009

Dear RORY VADEN:

We would like to offer you the opportunity to participate in the NYRR Empire State Building Run Up Preliminary Race scheduled to take place on Tuesday, February 3, 2009, at 9:00am.

Best of luck,
New York Road Runners
2009 NYRR Empire State Building Run-Up Selection Committee

Which means that the Take The Stairs World Tour is officially going to New York City!!!! This will be the second official stop for me as I climb the stairs of the 10 tallest buildings in the world. (Unfortunately I have to do this climb alone but we’ll see if we can re-live it on YouTube.) It also marks the 4th of the 10 buildings that I have confirmed my participation in (along with the CN Tower, Taipei 101, and the Sears Tower). The International Finance Center 2 in Hong Kong appears that they may have a race this year as well which would be the 5th and all of the other buildings we are still effort-ing our entrance into. Anyone out there that has any ideas on how to get into the other 5 buildings please post a comment below for me!

Getting to climb the Empire State Building is a dream come true. One that didn’t seem realistic because of the intense security at the building and because only about 120 people from the entire world get invited to be in the race each year. I’d like to extend another HUGE THANK YOU to Cliff and Emily at the foundation for taking a chance on me when I cold-called them. You are wonderful and I promise that good will come out of this!

What are your wildest dreams in 2009? Are they so big that you would know for sure if they came true that it took not only your full energy but the help of other greater forces as well?

“When you’re inspired by some great purpose, some
extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their
bounds. Your mind transcends limitations; your
consciousness expands in every direction; and you find
yourself in a new great and wonderful world. Dormant
forces, faculties and talents come alive, and you
discover yourself to be a greater person by far than
you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

- Pantajali, a second century B.C. philosopher

Join the Take The Stairs Tour:
Click Here

Find out more:
Take The Stairs Website

See you in the stairwell,

Rory Vaden
Take the stairs - Success means doing what others won't.

PS…Here is a little bit about what I’m getting myself into in NYC:

Course Description: There are 1,576 steps for a total of 1050 feet in elevation. The stair width is 40 inches and the length is 7.5 inches. Each story has two flights of stairs, separated by a landing. The length of a flight varies and there are six different flight patterns on the ascent.