Edmonds woman wins tower stairs run

Published 11:48 am Friday, February 22, 2008

EDMONDS — Mandy Cordova has reached the top, and she’s done so faster than almost anyone else.

Cordova, a 42-year-old Edmonds woman, finished first in the 30-44 age group for women in the annual Columbia Tower Run in downtown Seattle March 2 to raise money for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.

“I beat a lot of younger women,” Cordova said. “The older I get the faster I get.”

Only one woman in any age group ran the 69 flights of 1,311 stairs – 788 vertical feet worth – faster than Cordova, and that woman is 45.

The run took Cordova 10 minutes, 30 seconds. Her estimate of the number of people who took part is about 900, including 246 women. The runners started at 10-second intervals.

“I passed quite a few people this year. I was on a mission,” Cordova said.

Cordova works as a group exercise director at the Seattle Athletic Club at Northgate and does individual personal training on the side. Her work helped her get ready for the run, using a stair machine at the club. But the run is one of the tougher things she’s done.

“I’m not going to say it was fun,” she said. “It’s the most grueling thing I could put myself through.”

This is the fifth year Cordova has participated. The first three years, she just wanted to challenge herself and “see what it was like,” she said. Last year she ran in honor of the daughter of a club member who had been diagnosed with leukemia. The girl, 6, is now in total remission, Cordova says happily.

This year, she wanted to see if she could win. She trained long and hard on a set of 400 stairs on Seattle’s Capitol Hill and on the equipment at the gym.

She’s raised nearly $1,100 so far, and has until the end of the month to raise more, she said.

To help Mandy Cordova raise money for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society, contact her at the Seattle Athletic Club/Northgate at 206-522-9400.