Runners stare down bank tower's stairs in Fight for Air Climb

Five weeks before John Foley succumbed to lung cancer, he competed in a triathlon.

Now, five months after his death, his friends will test their lungs - and heart - sprinting up 42 flights at Tampa's Bank of America tower in memory of their fellow athlete.

Lisa Jamison, a triathlete and owner of Tampa's LIFT Performance Enhancement, was visiting Foley in hospice care when she got the idea to run in the March 26 Fight for Air Climb Tampa, a fundraiser for the American Lung Association.

Foley was chatting about upcoming races, and Jamison asked if she could do the climb for him. Foley, who had discovered his advanced form of lung cancer just months earlier, even approved the team's T-shirt logo the week before he died at age 49.

An estimated 900 runners will be taking part in the sixth annual race, which Jamison and other veteran athletes say is one of the most grueling physical challenges they have faced. It also brings attention to chronic lung diseases and cancers diagnosed for tens of millions of Americans.

"There is no workout that compares to this," says Sam Kicak, 24, the second-fastest woman in the 2010 climb (time: 7 minutes, 19 seconds) and a trainer with in Valrico.

Rob Zulkoski, whose Rob Z Fitness team won the overall climb in 2010, compares a six- to 10-minute climb up the Bank of America tower to a 45-minute aerobics class or a sub-30-minute running of a 5K race, in a stuffy, oddly-lit office tower stairwell.

"I finally understand why they call it the 'Fight for Air' climb," says Rob Z trainer Davie Ferraro, 29, the 2010 men's second-place finisher (time: 5 minutes, 45 seconds.) "After you finish, it's like emphysema. ... I would never want to feel that pain."

Tampa resident Michele Pryor can. She's lived with asthma all her life, and can recall times as a child when it felt as if someone was pushing down on her chest and grasping her throat.

She pushed back, and has run a half marathon, scaled the 14,000-foot Inca trail to Machu Picchu and completed the 2010 Tampa Fight for Air Climb.

The Tampa race offers a glimpse into life with limited lung capacity, she says.

"Within 10 flights you feel it," says Pryor, 42, who estimates she is able to tap about 65 percent of her lung capacity. "Your breath can be taken away pretty quickly."

Shirley Westgate, area executive director of the American Lung Association, says most of the racers are athletes who want a unique challenge, or firefighters who race in a separate - and extremely competitive - division while wearing their gear.

The rest are people like Pryor, who have a personal connection to the lung diseases targeted by the association: lung cancer, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the official name for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Those diseases affect nearly 40 million American children and adults, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.

"Some people would give their eye teeth to be doing this," Jamison says.

Each racer pays a $25 registration fee, but also raises at least $100 for the Lung Association. Westgate says 80 percent of that money is used for programs that include local lung disease support groups, asthma and flu prevention education, emergency financial assistance for the sick and education for respiratory nurses.

Coincidentally, the stuffy stairwell highlights another mission of the association: improving air quality.

"The stairway doesn't have the cleanest air," Zulkoski says.

To prepare for the climb, many athletes hit the gym, doing lunges, butt blasters and sandbag tosses. Zulkoski, who trains for about two months, throws on a weighted vest for his workout. Some racers incorporate upper-body muscles to better pull up on the stairwells' handrails.

The climb is carefully controlled, with racers starting at assigned 15-second intervals. Medical personnel, water stations and cheerleaders are stationed on different floors. And racers are advised to follow basic etiquette, allowing a person to pass on the left and no blocking.

Westgate says it's a thrill to watch people the last few floors, as the racers get energized by the cheering fans waiting at the top, at the scenic Tampa Club. Once they do catch their breath, Westgate says there's never a question how they'll return to the ground.

"People are very happy to take the elevator down."

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