Monument climb won in 70 seconds

BENNINGTON -- Outside of taking the elevator, no one can get to the top of the Bennington Battle Monument quicker than Justin Stewart.

The 23-year-old from Springfield, Ill., blazed his way up the obelisk’s 438 steps in 1 minute, 10 seconds, matching the standing record, to win the 3rd Annual Bennington Battle Monument Stair Climb by more than 10 seconds on Saturday morning.

Even the elevator, which gets from ground level to the observation deck in about 59 seconds, its operators said, had to hustle to beat Stewart up the tallest structure in Vermont.

More than 150 people charged up the monument’s steps, but the closest anyone came to matching Stewart’s times -- he did the 20 stories in 1:14 on a second try -- was P.J. Glassey’s mark of 1:22.

A former cross-country and track athlete at Division-I Eastern Illinois University, Stewart got his first glimpse of the monument at about 9 a.m., he said, simply jumped right in.

"I did a couple of practice runs Š kind of got my bearings, but still, the first run up, you just can’t compare it to anything," Stewart said. "I was going to as hard as I could for as long as I could.

"Three-fourths of the way up I really started getting tired."

Local runner Tim VanOrden, 43, was fifth overall at 1:31, but the stair climb wasn’t his only event on Saturday.

Prior to the hometown race, he traveled to and from Northfield, Mass., where he won the Masters division of the 10-kilometer New England Trail Running Championships.

VanOrden said the monument’s unique stairs -- 417 steps that are 18 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall plus 21 more up a steep spiral set short of the finish -- add to the difficulty.

"It’s hard to get a rhythm because the stairs are deeper and not as high," VanOrden said. "Your feet get confused."

Kourtney Dexter, 30, of Seattle, Wash., blew away the previous women’s record (1:58) to become the fastest female to the top with a time of 1:27.

Dexter said she had done several tall-building climbs before but the extent of her strategy for scaling the much shorter monument was dialing up Mötley Crüe’s "Kickstart My Heart" in her earbuds.

"I didn’t know what to expect at all, because I’d never done a sprint like this," Dexter said. "It’s all-out right away."

Four fire departments from around the state -- Bennington, Williston, South Burlington and Burlington -- also sent competitors to Old Bennington.

Unlike the competitive runners decked out in high-tech, lightweight clothing, the firefighters suited up in full gear as if they were charging head-long into a burning building.

Bearing 50-plus pounds of equipment, South Burlington’s Eric Bollhardt, a Shaftsbury native and 2006 Mount Anthony Union High School graduate, was the fastest firefighter with a time of 2:29 -- good enough for 28th overall.

Bollhardt said he surprised himself with the finish.

"I wasn’t expecting that, the stairs were a lot more punishing than what I thought they’d be," he said.