April 26, 2015
It’s literally a tall task. But it’s a great challenge for a great cause.
Yesterday, I participated in my second Canada Life CN Tower Stair Climb. More than 6,000 people took part in this year’s climb, the 25th anniversary of the event, to raise funds for World Wildlife Fund. Last year, it raised about $1 million.
A year ago, I finished with a time of 21:48. Being my first time, I just took it slow and steady. Not a bad result, really. I was proud of the fact that I made it to the top without stopping.
The Climb
This year, my goal was to beat that time, and maybe even break the 20-minute mark. I had a plan: I figured I’d start off at a faster pace and then settle into a steady climb. If I took two stairs at a time for first 20 levels or so (there are 147 levels), that would give me an initial momentum and then I could finish with a more moderate, steady pace.
Bad idea.
Before I had even reached level 20, I was starting to really feel the burn in my quadriceps, and my breathing was getting laboured. That’s when it dawned on me that it had probably been a mistake that I hadn’t done any exercise in the two weeks prior to the Climb. I had had to skip my weekly ball hockey game for each of the previous two weeks. I started to worry that my cardio wasn’t going to be up to the task. I switched to taking the stairs one at a time except when I needed to pass slower traffic.
There are EMS people stationed on every fifth landing or so, and the higher I climbed, and the harder my breathing became, the more I wondered if I might need to avail myself of some paramedic assistance. Fred Sanford flashed in my mind, clutching his chest. “It’s the big one! I’m comin’ to join you, Elizabeth!”
At level 102, I decided to stop to catch my breath, as many people do. I rested for maybe a little less than a minute, and then carried on with the climb. Steady as she goes.
That Time
Well, the good news is that the rest allowed me to continue; the bad news is that it kept me from breaking the 20-minute mark.
My time was 20:21 – oh so close! I did beat my time from last year, though, shaving off almost a minute-and-a-half. So I’m happy about that.
It gives me something to shoot for next year. And I’ll try to use a smarter strategy. Maybe getting in some cardio exercise before climbing up all 1,776 steps of the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere might be a good idea? Yeah, I think maybe so.
Postscript: A funny thing happened on the way to the CN Tower
On the way to the tower, via the Skywalk from Union Station, there’s a series of flights of stairs to ascend, but the escalator is under repair and blocked off.
Noting the situation, my immediate thought was, “Damn, you mean I have to take all these stairs?” I had to chuckle to myself when the irony struck me. Facing the mountain, I was whining about a mole hill!
