Big Climb Record Falls...Yet Again!

On May 10th I found myself with all my work finished and I still had 3 hours to go before my shift ended. I stood at the bottom of the giant nemesis structure and looked up towards the top railing and said to myself that this was the day. Today I would make an attempt at felling the record of 10 continuous climbs by going 11.

Back on April 30th I posted I had been training for this day for the last 3 weeks and now I had another 10 days of climbing and running behind me. There’s no time like the present, so up I started. In the back of my mind, I kept telling myself to take it easy and if worse came to worse; I would log it as a training day.

3 times up and down and I began to sweat. The ambient temperature was the high 80’s and the saving grace was the strong wind. The wind was both savior and menace. On one hand, it removed the extra heat my body was generating. On the other, it all but blew my hardhat off many times during the climb.

The climb became a blur of slow ascensions with rapid descendings and nagging doubt and then renewed determination as each flight came and went. 284 steps up and half that amount descending, as I took the stairs 2 at a time coming down.

By the time I started up for the 8th time I was an hour and 10 minutes into the attempt and kept telling myself I only had “3 more to go” after this one. Coming down from number 9, I pondered "I had this one in the bag” and I just needed to knock out number 10 to do my last climb…number 11.

Finally, as I slowly stepped up the structure for the 11th time, I walked around a bit and then sat down on the top step and let the wind wash over me. So who did I beat? Nobody, or just me, or everybody – you decide. One thing is for sure, come November I’ll have to challenge my title by going for number 12.

Maybe I’m running and no one is chasing or maybe, just maybe, I’m having the time of my life.