Valley Fire Climbs To The Top - Again

For the awards ceremony at the Bank of America Tower in Seattle, Mark Knokey said he plans to take the elevator.

No one can blame him.

The Spokane Valley Fire District firefighter has already shown he can take the stairs.

Knokey won the 69-floor stair climb held Sunday.

In April, Knokey and the team from Valley Fire will return to the Columbia Tower Club to pick up their first-place team trophies. It’s the third year in a row a team from Valley Fire has won the event. It’s the second year Knokey has won.

Knokey, a lanky 28-year-old who’s been a Valley Firefighter four years, beat out 457 other firefighters from around the Northwest up 1,311 steps in full firefighting gear.

He reached the top of the West’s tallest building 30 seconds faster than his own event record of 12 minutes, 12 seconds, set last year.

Instead of pacing himself with a stopwatch, Knokey raced against his heart and favorite music.

He monitored his heart rate, trying to keep it below a racing 182 beats per minute. By the end it was hovering around 188, he said.

He also recorded 12 minutes of music with a fast beat - namely The Clash, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Stroke 9 and The Cure.

He knew he’d beaten last year’s time when he finished the race before the end of the last song.

The music, he said, helped him concentrate on something other than the argument his body was having with his head.

“Your body is telling you to stop,” he said. “It’s one of those where you go as hard as you can and don’t stop.”

In their lives outside firefighting, Knokey and teammates Dave Griffiths, who came in third overall, and Bob Leaming, who came in seventh, play sports and stay fit.

Knokey is a competitive cyclist and Leaming plays on recreational soccer teams.

It’s usually the skinny guys with great hearts who make it to the top the quickest.

“They don’t carry a lot of extra mass,” said Valley Fire training division chief Larry Rider of the top finishers from Valley Fire. “They’re in great shape. The ones that aren’t in good shape don’t go.”

The ninth annual Firefighter Challenge was a charity race to benefit the Lukemia Society of America.

It started at noon Sunday on the fifth floor lobby area of the Bank of America Tower and continued up to the observation deck on the 73rd floor.

Firefighters from 80 departments from across the Northwest raced in the event. Some didn’t finish. Others took as long as 90 minutes to climb the stairs. The average individual time was 21 minutes, said Kris Maki, campaign manager for the Lukemia Society.

The top three finishers from Valley Fire, Knokey, Griffiths and Leaming, had a composite time of 38 minutes and 25 seconds.

All eight of the firefighters from Valley Fire who entered finished the race. The times of the top three finishers were combined to decide the winning team. Other Valley firefighters who competed were Rhys Evans, Ryan Lieuallen, Bill Malpass, Andy Reilly and Hank Williamson.