Wall Street bankers are used to living and working in Manhattan skyscrapers. But unless the power goes out, most aren’t used to taking the stairs.
On Wednesday night, they did just that as part of the 35th annual Empire State Building Run-Up, a charity event that had more than 600 people racing up the 1,576 stairs of the tallest building in New York in support of a multitude of charities and nonprofit organizations.
The evening’s sponsor charity – the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation – enlisted the help of a number of Wall Street banks in the race. Around 40 financial services workers participated in the race through the organization, which raised more than $500,000 from the group to support research on multiple myeloma, a cancer than affects plasma cells.
“There are a lot of very generous people on Wall Street, as well as very competitive people,” said Nick Tiller, a portfolio manager at SAC Capital who ran in the race. “This gives them the opportunity to do both of those things.”
Three-person teams from Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, Wells Fargo and SAC Capital participated in the challenge alongside other corporate teams.
In all, 666 participants finished the race, which was hosted by the New York City Road Runners. Some teams had trained for weeks, logging miles on StairMasters and in their workplaces, while others had made no preparations at all.
Paul Mutter, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, said that some members of his team had trained by running up the stairs in Goldman’s 40-plus-story headquarters. Yoshi E. Nakamura, a vice president in Citigroup’s institutional equity sales division, said he had “logged a few floors” in his apartment building, and was planning to use the Empire State Building’s hand rails to propel himself during the race.
“You’ve got to save the legs,” Mr. Nakamura said. “When you get past the 20th floor, it really sets in.”
Christine Kenney, an assistant vice president in Citigroup’s equity capital markets division, said she was aiming to beat last year’s time of 16:04.
“I love to compete,” she said. “I’m more nervous today than I was doing the Ironman.”
Before the race, the competitors mingled in a second-floor atrium, discussing topics like whether Vibram FiveFingers shoes were helpful when running, and if climbing the stairs two at a time was a good idea. (Verdict: only with long legs.) Most had raised thousands of dollars to support the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
“This is not about athletic performance for me,” Mr. Tiller of SAC Capital said.
Of course, Wall Street being Wall Street, even a good-natured charity event contained undertones of cutthroat competition.
“As long as I beat Goldman and Citigroup, I’m good,” joked Sheldon Hanau, a managing director at Credit Suisse, during his pre-race warmup.
At the start of the race, a flight of 24 elite runners who had been selected by the New York Road Runners took off ahead of the rest of the pack. Among them was Brian Kuritzky, a 25-year-old securities analyst with Goldman Sachs. Mr. Kuritzky, who finished atop the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation’s wave with a time of 13:38 in last year’s race, was invited to join the front-runner wave this year alongside competitors from Germany, Italy and Belgium.
When they took off, runners maneuvered around each other as they entered the stairwell on the ground floor. Twelve minutes and 52 seconds later, Mr. Kuritzky, a former soccer player at Cornell, crossed the finish line on the building’s 86th-floor observation deck, finishing 14th place in the men’s invitational heat.
The fastest man in that heat – six-time champion Thomas Dold of Germany – added a seventh title by finishing first in 10:28, while the Melissa Moon, a New Zealand native, took the women’s invitational title with a time of 12:39.
A team from Goldman Sachs prevailed in the Wall Street contingent, as they had the year prior. They won two trophies: one given to the team that raised the most money (they raised $34,720) and another for the team with the fastest combined time.
But Mr. Kuritzky, who raised $100,000 from friends, colleagues and relatives for the charity, said that despite his solid finish and his firm’s win, the 1,050-foot vertical climb had taken a toll.
“I’m incredibly tired,” he said after the race, his face dripping with sweat. “I should have trained more.”