A Boppin' Great Time!!

Tom Gospel prepping for his second assault on the 37 floor race up the OneAmerica Tower. His intention was to strike terror into the hearts of his competitors, so he wore his brightest sweatshirt. Tom was psyched, confident, and all smiles! He had trained specifically for this event since that last piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
Brad Geswein put on his game face for this - he was NOT going to be denied! Defending champion in the "young man" category, he is fresh off a training trip to Shanghai, where he spent the majority of his days running up the hotel's 32 floors of stairs. Oh, and bringing back 89 bootleg movies. And beating Gospel in drinking games. Brad's roommate, Alexa, and Tom's skating buddy Craig, teamed up with our speaker-guys to form Team Klipsch, competing in the ultra-competitive "Open" team division.
Laura Geswein, Brad's sister and one of our favorite ringer-entries, rolled out of bed, showed up with half a banana, threw down a few stretches and then rocketed to the top of the Tower. She had a group of friends she bopped with in a Co-Ed team.
A cruddy photo of a great group of guys - Indianapolis Firefighters. Most people at the Bop are dressed like runners on a summer day - as light as possible. Not these warriors: Full combat gear - in addition to their strong, generally non-runner bodies, they are toting something like 70 pounds of gear up the 37 flights of stairs. And they are doing it FAST - these guys compete with firefighter companies from all over the state, and they take this EXTREMELY seriously - fast times mean saved lives!
And then, the post-Bop euphoria: Finishers were easily picked out of a crowd not so much by a pool of sweat (the race is only a few minutes long) but instead by the white tee-shirt draped over their shoulder, and even more easily by the deep, hacking cough that almost every Bopper develops.
This is Team Klipsch immediately after the finish, still in the hallway in fact! And they had every right to be smiling! They did a super job: left to right -
Alex - a very respectable time of 6:29 in his first bopping experience (and no special Asian training trip under his belt - maybe Brad will take him next year)
Brad - Not only defended his age-group championship, but also shattered the 5-min barrier with a time of 4:37 and finishing 11th overall (missing top ten by a mere one-tenth of a second).
Tom - Soundly broke the 6-min barrier with a time of 5:48. Great cross-training, this stair climbing thing, for Tom's primary athletic pursuit of roller-blading/skating.
Craig - Also broke the 6-min barrier, and his age has long broken the 50 year barrier. An awesome climb!
Team Klipsch finished second in the ultra-competitive Open Division! Laura also won her age-group and her Co-Ed team finished 3rd.
(In a side note, there were 55 "Triple-Steppers" this year - that is the division where competitors go up THREE TIMES and their times are added together. Last year, there were about 30. John finished 13th last year with an average of 6:47, and this year would have finished just about the same place if he had repeated that time. He decided to skip the event this year, although he enjoyed it a lot last year - he just didn't get along well with all those left-hand turns!)