ORANGE BEACH, Alabama — A group of local heroes — firefighters and police officers — took on a special challenge in Orange Beach on Thursday.

A race to the top of the gleaming Turquoise Place with the proceeds slated to benefit Special Olympics of Alabama. That’s an estimated 31 floors or about 7,500 individual steps, cut down somewhat if you take ‘em two at the time. 

Daphne Police Officer and SWAT member David Smith said before taking to the stairs he was gonna “take ‘em two at time as long as I can. It may go down to a slow crawl.”

When it was all said and done, Foley Police Officer Carlos Lizarraga ran through the tape in 4:13. Just a step behind was Orange Beach Fire Capt. Justin Pearson.

Mike Wattigny of Running Wild helped organize the event as a kickoff for the Gulf Coast Half Marathon Series. Spectrum Resorts, which operates Turquoise Place, The Beach Club and Caribe Resorts, was happy to play host.

“It’s a cause that’s close to our hearts,” Marketing Director Eva Faircloth of Spectrum said. “One of our employees’ sisters is a Special Olympics athlete. She competes every year so this our way to give back to that organization for the great things that it does for our Special Olympic athletes.”

One Foley officer and member of the South Baldwin Special Response Team, Chuck Sutherlin, took the challenge a bit further. On his Facebook page he said if anyone would donate $100 to Special Olympics he’d do the race to the top in his full SWAT gear.

That adds about 30-40 pounds with armor and ammo and handcuffs and sidearm.

“I got a response in about a minute and somebody donated the money,” Sutherlin said. He and fellow Foley officer Thurston Bullock both ran the steps in full gear and finished in just over 10 minutes.

Faircloth said the donations are still rolling in as more people hear of the event and want to give.

“On the day of the race, we raised $500, however, donations are still coming in and we expect the final amount raised to be between $1,000 and $1,500 for the Special Olympics,” she said. “We are very pleased with the outcome this year, and know that next year will be even bigger and better. We already have interest from groups outside of Baldwin County and are looking forward to this being an annual event for the community to come together for the Special Olympics of Alabama.”

The first one to pop out into the sunshine, Lizarraga was spent by the effort. Pearson soon followed.

The OBFD had three finish in places second, third and fourth in the climb as Keith Kyte and Mikey Osborne emerged onto the roof right after Pearson.

“It was intense,” Pearson said. “You’re working your muscles differently, climbing versus running on flat land.”

Right on Lizarraga’s heels, Pearson said he planned to make a move to pass with two floors to go, and at the 31st story thought there were two more to go. There was actually a little less than one to go at that point.

“There at the end I turned it on,” Pearson said. “I thought I had two more floors to go.”

The race started in front of the Tower with the bang from a small cannon. It was modeled after a similar race Wattigny organized inside a Hyatt in Honolulu about seven years ago.

“It pitted a lot of the emergency services, first responders against each other all the way to the top,” Wattigny said. “Courage, valor and gumption will get you up about three flights of stairs then you have about 30 more to go.”

Wattigny said people from at least 20 states participated in the half marathon in Gulf Shores on Sunday. It is the first of three in a series of runs slated for Gulf Shores, Pensacola and Mandeville, La., just north of New Orleans.