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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Climbing 52 Flights of Stairs is Harder than it Sounds




From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)




2010 Big D Climb at The Fountain Building


I woke up today excited about my 3rd event in my 2010 Bike Run Yoga Challenge, the Big D Climb. The Big D Climb is a 52 flight, 1040 step stair climb at The Fountain Building that benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Seven friends decided to join me today, the largest group of friends I’ve ever had at an event and we had such a great time! It was so exciting waiting at the bottom; we were all so pleasantly oblivious to what awaited us. Right before we started our climb, someone posted the fastest time, 6:20. We all looked at it and laughed. Seriously? I thought to myself, when I ran on the stair climber it took me 6 minutes to go up 28 flights if stairs there is no way I could do 52 in 6 minutes, that is insane! Congrats to “Zach” who had the fastest time, I “climbed” my own race thank you very much.

From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)

At 8:34 am we started the Bike Run Yoga team climb up 52 flights of stairs, there were moments of cheering, motivation, determination, feels of needing to throw up, exhaustion, annoyance for feeling so out of shape, and complete satisfaction for reaching the top.

The climb started off great, Rhonda was in front of me and I cheered her on, “Go Rhonda Go!” Then it was my turn. The guy got my D-tag to beep, “ok, go” he says and I start of running, going up two steps at a time cheering as I went. I made it to what I thought was a fairly high level and looked up, gasping for air, and saw the sign said 8. Only the 8th floor? Are you kidding me?! Fine, I think, and I keep going. Not two at a time but heck, I was still moving upward.

From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)

Somewhere around floor 20 – 22 a volunteer gave me water and it went down the wrong way. After that, every time I took a breath in I coughed like I was a chain smoker. Solution? Breathe through the nose, which is what we do in yoga for 90 minutes so surely I should be able to do that for a stair climb, right? Uh, no, apparently not. I noticed I was having the hardest time breathing through my nose, could be because I had some congestion from my ski vacation. (At least I will blame it on that.)

As I came around each staircase I kept seeing the stupid floor level signs and they really were pissing me off, I mean, they were increasing so SLOWLY! There were great volunteers cheering everyone on though and that was nice. At floor 25 they were shouting half way…half way I thought, man, I am about to pass out and I only made it half way? I made it to floor 26 but it wasn’t pretty. I can’t even tell you what the volunteers looked like, my eyes were planted on the stairs so I didn’t fall or trip myself.

Rhonda and I were going up together and then at the half way point she needed to take a break. I did too but I remembered what Coach Joe said at the San Diego Marathon, just keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. So I just kept going, slow maybe but I tried to just keep walking up the stairs, one step at a time.

From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)

My arms started to lose feeling sometime shortly after the half way point. My mind started to think about the medics someone mentioned were at the top. At the TOP I thought, heck, I need one right now!

I lost my mind somewhere between the floors in the 30’s and 40’s, those floors at bit of a blur, probably a good thing. At one point I saw two ladies and one said to the other, “I want to take a break.” As I passed I said “I want to take a break with you too.” Of course, I kept going. I did have to stop a few times to cough. Coughing almost made me vomit the apple fritter I had before I got there. Let me just say, apple fritter does not take good the second time around.


Then, as I rounded the staircase I could hear beeping…and volunteers were shouting almost there. What a glorious feeling. When I run I usually sprint to the end but not today. Today I was just lucky to make it. As I came around the 51st flight, there was a lady taking pictures. I did my best to smile while still heaving myself up the stairs. I crossed the finish line with a time of 17:22.

From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)

I feel such an amazing sense of accomplishment today and feel so thankful Rhonda, Scott, Chris, Dave, Jessica, Kelly and Doug choose to run up 52 flights of stairs with me today. I am so proud of everyone, we not only did something for ourselves but we also helped raise funds and awareness for blood cancer research. It makes me proud to be able to be part of something greater than myself and I have loved my experiences with different events through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. However, I think I would rather run another marathon with them than go up 52 more flights of stairs! Man that was HARD!

From 2010 Big D Climb(by Eye-Fi)

2010 Bike Run Challenge: Join Today! 

Yoga For Beginners 

ToeSox Yoga / Pilates Organic Cotton Toe Socks (Medium, Black) 

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like an awesome event. I've always wanted to try one of these. You just inspired me to look for one in the Boston area!

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  2. Fantastic job taking on an awesome challenge while helping to raise much needed funds to help bring an end to the suffering caused by blood cancers.

    We kicked off our summer season this past week and had our first training this weekend. I have over 50 participants that I am training to do America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride and Seattle to Portland 200 Mile Ride.

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