Shaw man on top of the world after charity climb (From Wiltshire Times)

Shaw man on top of the world after charity climb

3:00pm Friday 8th March 2013 in Bradford By Adam Care

It was a long way to the top for 47-year-old Darren Wrintmore on Tuesday, as he raced up the 920 steps of London’s Natwest Tower.

Mr Wrintmore, from Shaw, took part in the Vertical Rush challenge, when 1,000 runners climbed to the top of the second-tallest tower in the City of London, to raise money for homelessness charity Shelter.

The senior project manager for Fujitsu completed the challenge in under seven minutes, finishing in 91st place.

He said: “It was a lot harder than expected, no thanks due to the additional six flights of stairs that we had to run up from ground level to the base of the tower, and then a further three un-numbered maintenance floors that were thrown in for good measure, meaning that we had to ascend 51 floors and not the advertised 42.

“After 35 flights the air was so incredibly dry, it actually hurt to breathe. I could feel my throat rasping as I took a breath, the last few floors literally had me pulling myself up the stairs using both arms on the stair rail.”

As an experienced marathon runner and vice-president of the Avon Valley Runners running club he is used to tackling long distances, but admitted the training for this challenge was tough.

He said: “Our offices have 10 floors which was been quite good for getting used to the effort required to do tower running, but I had to run multiple repetitions to get the required benefit.

“My preparation suffered something of a setback when, after finding a video of the 2012 Vertical Rush, I noticed with horror that the runners were going up an anti-clockwise stairwell, while I had been training on a clockwise one.

“This is very important as you tend to use your arms a lot more in tower running, and being right-handed this had helped me. I’m pleased to have completed it within my target time, and have raised a few hundred pounds for the charity.

“I’m definitely going to be keeping my meetings on the ground floor for a while though.”

Comments are closed on this article.