19:06.4

I made the climb up 52 flights of stairs in 19:06.4 minutes!

I had expected to take about half an hour to complete the climb and was pleasantly surprised to finished it so "quickly." The fastest time was 8 minutes!

I knew the event was going to go well when the DJ played Phil Collins during the warm up. Phil's genius has been alarmingly overlooked. Always a good sign when he's recognized.

I had a strategy going into this race--walk a flight of stairs, jog up the next flight of stairs, repeat. By the time I got to the 3rd floor, my strategy changed to "just keep moving." The jogging part, even for that one flight of stairs, was killer.

I moved into a slow and steady pace, stopping for water three times and wondering what motivates me to do these types of events only once. The time and flights of stairs passed quickly while the burn in the thighs lingered. I'm not feeling much soreness tonight but am anticipating some gimping come Monday.

Of the 814 finishers, I finished 88th in my age group and 544th overall. I had a good enough time at this climb that I'll be flying down to LA next month to do another one!

I've created a team for the LA climb; we're the Vertically Challenged team. Please consider donating to the American Lung Association, which this event supports: https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=260748&lis=0&kntae260748=4E13E137CDB34A139A2EB16D66A9D3AB&supId=0&team=2756145&cj=Y