It's over!
I'm done!
Yesterday was probably one the most awesome, brutal, and amazing days of my life!
It started early Sunday morning. Emily and I drove the rig from our hotel into Downtown Seattle where we would meet the rest of our team, Shane and Trevor. I HATE city driving. It's like a nightmare. Trying to find a place to park downtown is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
The atrium of the Columbia Center was packed. Vendors were set up in the center, while teams staked out their space on the ground around the perimeter and camped out with their gear. It was really cool seeing people from other Oregon departments, some of whom I knew, and people from other states, or countries. New Zealand, the UK, Poland, I think there a few Aussies too...
Participants are split up into Battalions of about 30 people, Trevor was in Battalion 15, so he climbed fairly early.
I was in Battalion 41.
The first Battalion is sent off with the Seattle Pipes and Drums leading the way, which was awesome! A fellow sleeper lent me his GoPro, and I got a video of the first battalion but I haven't been able to get the video from the camera to my computer. Way to technical for me I guess.
In the hours that followed I camped out on the ground, lying on my turnout gear, munching on granola bars and remembering Dad's warning not to puke in my mask.
I wasn't too worried about that though.
I'm not too proud to admit that when I get excited/nervous, my glomerular filtration rate skyrockets and my nephrons seem to do little in the way of reabsorbing fluid. I made more trips to the restroom than I care to recall.
I spent money on a fabulous Seattle Firefighters Pipes and Drums t-shirt--maybe spending money is a nervous response as well. ;)
Around 14:20 it was finally time to climb! I donned my gear, tucking my pant legs into my boots, which everyone told me helped cut down on the resistance. I bounced nervously to the beat of Kate Perry's "Roar" and "Immortals" by Fall Out Boy. I had spent a great deal of time putting together an up-beat playlist for the climb, and I told myself I would never make it to the top without my music!
So off we went, Battalion 41, up the first three floors on the escalators, out to the front of the atrium. There's about 15 seconds between climbers.
Just enough time to don your mask, helmet, and gloves, snugly nestle those earbuds in your auditory canals and move up the line. You'll swipe your right arm across the sensor to activate your timing chip, and off you go!
The night before, we did the math.
If I paced myself to 20 seconds per floor, and added in maybe 2 minutes for a rest at the bottle changing station, I could do it in about 25 minutes.
So I paced myself.
At about the 6th floor I felt myself start to get into that heavy breathing, and I thought, 'What have I done?'
But I pressed on, stepping aside in the narrow stairwells to let other climbers (many of them) pass me.
Around the 25th floor I started to hate myself.
'Think about why you're here!' that little voice in my head kept saying. Every floor had a poster of an honoree, someone who had battled, or was currently battling blood cancer. Some people touched each one as they passed it.
Sometime around the 30th floor my bottle started chiming.
It seemed way, way, way too early.
I picked up the pace. My music was blaring, my bottle was chiming, the PASS device chirping its little song...someone else's bottle started chiming. I mostly just heard myself breathing hard, so I yanked out the earbuds and left them to fate.
Staggering onto the 40th floor, a volunteer grabbed me and helped me into a chair.
That is where my bottle changer, Shane, and two friends from our neighboring district found me, gasping for air like a fish out of water. I abandoned that two-minute bottle change idea.
They helped me take off my helmet and mask, open up my jacket and poor bottles of water down my back and over my head.
It felt like heaven.
"I don't think I can finish." I pant.
They assured me I could. They waited patiently while I caught my breath and then changed my bottle out. Another guy knelt down next to me and asked who I was and how I was feeling. He told me to keep my gloves off and leave my jacket open to cool down.
I really must have looked beat.
With an impending sense of doom (wink) I reattached my regulator, and it was back to purgatory.
Those last 29 floors were the worst. I stopped every 2 or 3 floors to hunch over and catch a little breath. I passed some firefighters. And then they passed me--like a game of leapfrog. Passing firefighters would give fist bumps, or a thump on the back, and urge each other on. A guy from another department and I ended up sticking together for several floors, and he would look back and make sure I was still going, or I would stop and wait for him while he caught his breath. We kept each other going for a while, but then we lost track of each other.
That's the thing about turnouts. Everyone looks like everyone else for the most part.
Around the 52nd floor I stopped again (as I did at every opportunity) to have a volunteer dump water down my back. She looked concerned enough that I let her lead me out of the stairwell and sit on a chair for a few minutes (next to another very tired looking firefighter) and chug some water. I think I had her dump two more full bottles over me before I suited back up.
By then I was almost crawling up the stairs. The pack felt really heavy.
And wouldn't you know it, but around floor 56 it started chiming again! It's deceptive--you know the climb is 69 floors, so at floor 56 I'm thinking, 'Okay, only 13 more floors.'
But remember, we started on floor 3, so it ends at floor 72.
Somehow, with many stops along the way, I made it! I made it up those 69 floors! It was so amazing seeing all those people at the end yelling and clapping. I did actually manage to run to the table and swipe my timing chip. There are volunteers to hustle you out of the way of other arriving firefighters, but they take off your gear for you as they guide you forward, help you find a seat, get you water, make sure you're not dying, and if you are they will get medical help for you.
It was a gorgeous view from the top--a perfect, sun-soaked day over the deep blue of the Puget sound. A volunteer took my picture with my phone (which takes horrible photos), and then I was ready to go. Maybe next year I'll hang around a little longer, celebrate with total strangers, take advantage of the free massages offered to climbers, but right then I wanted to eat something and get out of my soaked clothing.
The elevator down was crammed like a tin of sardines and smelled (as you can imagine) of many sweaty bodies. Down at the atrium there were tables heaped with fruit and every kind of granola or energy bar imaginable, and we were instructed to take as much as we wanted. In retrospect, I should have filled my turnout pockets (we have those lovely, deep pockets), but I really was in a sort of daze, so I scooped up handfuls of Cliff bars and followed the masses back down to the first floor.
And yes, I ate all the Cliff bars before we even left the tower.
I had a chance to shower at the hotel and inhale the sandwich Emily made me (filled with too much tomato--what do you think I am, Em? A vegetarian!?). It felt kinda weird walking down the streets of Seattle to the hotel looking like a drowned rat. :)
The after-event celebration was held at Fado's Irish pub. The place was like a head-on collision between a zoo, a sauna, and (again) a sardine tin. Pretty much standing room only. We stayed long enough for our team captain to say hi to his buddies, and then we left. Red Robin's made for a much quieter venue.
And let me tell you, being done with the Stairclimb is like license to eat anything and everything.
And so I did--we all did.
I love being a firefighter. The climb kind of puts my job into perspective. It's tough, but there is one thing that always keeps me going.
I'd like to say it is the public, the people I serve. While they are the reason I serve and love serving, the thing that keeps me going esprit de corps shared by firefighters.
I come from a large family, and am proud of it. Now my family has become even larger, and I'm proud of that too. I have so many brothers and sisters--my family members who were firefighters, my station family, classmates, the people in the next city, the next county, state, country...
It's an incredible feeling knowing they have my back and I have theirs.
Congrats to everyone who made it to the top!
Here's to all those brothers and sisters who have gone on before us, and thank you to everyone who donated to the cause!!
I'm done!
Yesterday was probably one the most awesome, brutal, and amazing days of my life!
It started early Sunday morning. Emily and I drove the rig from our hotel into Downtown Seattle where we would meet the rest of our team, Shane and Trevor. I HATE city driving. It's like a nightmare. Trying to find a place to park downtown is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
The atrium of the Columbia Center was packed. Vendors were set up in the center, while teams staked out their space on the ground around the perimeter and camped out with their gear. It was really cool seeing people from other Oregon departments, some of whom I knew, and people from other states, or countries. New Zealand, the UK, Poland, I think there a few Aussies too...
Participants are split up into Battalions of about 30 people, Trevor was in Battalion 15, so he climbed fairly early.
I was in Battalion 41.
The first Battalion is sent off with the Seattle Pipes and Drums leading the way, which was awesome! A fellow sleeper lent me his GoPro, and I got a video of the first battalion but I haven't been able to get the video from the camera to my computer. Way to technical for me I guess.
In the hours that followed I camped out on the ground, lying on my turnout gear, munching on granola bars and remembering Dad's warning not to puke in my mask.
I wasn't too worried about that though.
I'm not too proud to admit that when I get excited/nervous, my glomerular filtration rate skyrockets and my nephrons seem to do little in the way of reabsorbing fluid. I made more trips to the restroom than I care to recall.
I spent money on a fabulous Seattle Firefighters Pipes and Drums t-shirt--maybe spending money is a nervous response as well. ;)
Around 14:20 it was finally time to climb! I donned my gear, tucking my pant legs into my boots, which everyone told me helped cut down on the resistance. I bounced nervously to the beat of Kate Perry's "Roar" and "Immortals" by Fall Out Boy. I had spent a great deal of time putting together an up-beat playlist for the climb, and I told myself I would never make it to the top without my music!
So off we went, Battalion 41, up the first three floors on the escalators, out to the front of the atrium. There's about 15 seconds between climbers.
Just enough time to don your mask, helmet, and gloves, snugly nestle those earbuds in your auditory canals and move up the line. You'll swipe your right arm across the sensor to activate your timing chip, and off you go!
The night before, we did the math.
If I paced myself to 20 seconds per floor, and added in maybe 2 minutes for a rest at the bottle changing station, I could do it in about 25 minutes.
So I paced myself.
At about the 6th floor I felt myself start to get into that heavy breathing, and I thought, 'What have I done?'
But I pressed on, stepping aside in the narrow stairwells to let other climbers (many of them) pass me.
Around the 25th floor I started to hate myself.
'Think about why you're here!' that little voice in my head kept saying. Every floor had a poster of an honoree, someone who had battled, or was currently battling blood cancer. Some people touched each one as they passed it.
Sometime around the 30th floor my bottle started chiming.
It seemed way, way, way too early.
I picked up the pace. My music was blaring, my bottle was chiming, the PASS device chirping its little song...someone else's bottle started chiming. I mostly just heard myself breathing hard, so I yanked out the earbuds and left them to fate.
Staggering onto the 40th floor, a volunteer grabbed me and helped me into a chair.
That is where my bottle changer, Shane, and two friends from our neighboring district found me, gasping for air like a fish out of water. I abandoned that two-minute bottle change idea.
They helped me take off my helmet and mask, open up my jacket and poor bottles of water down my back and over my head.
It felt like heaven.
"I don't think I can finish." I pant.
They assured me I could. They waited patiently while I caught my breath and then changed my bottle out. Another guy knelt down next to me and asked who I was and how I was feeling. He told me to keep my gloves off and leave my jacket open to cool down.
I really must have looked beat.
With an impending sense of doom (wink) I reattached my regulator, and it was back to purgatory.
Those last 29 floors were the worst. I stopped every 2 or 3 floors to hunch over and catch a little breath. I passed some firefighters. And then they passed me--like a game of leapfrog. Passing firefighters would give fist bumps, or a thump on the back, and urge each other on. A guy from another department and I ended up sticking together for several floors, and he would look back and make sure I was still going, or I would stop and wait for him while he caught his breath. We kept each other going for a while, but then we lost track of each other.
That's the thing about turnouts. Everyone looks like everyone else for the most part.
Around the 52nd floor I stopped again (as I did at every opportunity) to have a volunteer dump water down my back. She looked concerned enough that I let her lead me out of the stairwell and sit on a chair for a few minutes (next to another very tired looking firefighter) and chug some water. I think I had her dump two more full bottles over me before I suited back up.
By then I was almost crawling up the stairs. The pack felt really heavy.
And wouldn't you know it, but around floor 56 it started chiming again! It's deceptive--you know the climb is 69 floors, so at floor 56 I'm thinking, 'Okay, only 13 more floors.'
But remember, we started on floor 3, so it ends at floor 72.
Somehow, with many stops along the way, I made it! I made it up those 69 floors! It was so amazing seeing all those people at the end yelling and clapping. I did actually manage to run to the table and swipe my timing chip. There are volunteers to hustle you out of the way of other arriving firefighters, but they take off your gear for you as they guide you forward, help you find a seat, get you water, make sure you're not dying, and if you are they will get medical help for you.
It was a gorgeous view from the top--a perfect, sun-soaked day over the deep blue of the Puget sound. A volunteer took my picture with my phone (which takes horrible photos), and then I was ready to go. Maybe next year I'll hang around a little longer, celebrate with total strangers, take advantage of the free massages offered to climbers, but right then I wanted to eat something and get out of my soaked clothing.
The elevator down was crammed like a tin of sardines and smelled (as you can imagine) of many sweaty bodies. Down at the atrium there were tables heaped with fruit and every kind of granola or energy bar imaginable, and we were instructed to take as much as we wanted. In retrospect, I should have filled my turnout pockets (we have those lovely, deep pockets), but I really was in a sort of daze, so I scooped up handfuls of Cliff bars and followed the masses back down to the first floor.
And yes, I ate all the Cliff bars before we even left the tower.
I had a chance to shower at the hotel and inhale the sandwich Emily made me (filled with too much tomato--what do you think I am, Em? A vegetarian!?). It felt kinda weird walking down the streets of Seattle to the hotel looking like a drowned rat. :)
The after-event celebration was held at Fado's Irish pub. The place was like a head-on collision between a zoo, a sauna, and (again) a sardine tin. Pretty much standing room only. We stayed long enough for our team captain to say hi to his buddies, and then we left. Red Robin's made for a much quieter venue.
And let me tell you, being done with the Stairclimb is like license to eat anything and everything.
And so I did--we all did.
I love being a firefighter. The climb kind of puts my job into perspective. It's tough, but there is one thing that always keeps me going.
I'd like to say it is the public, the people I serve. While they are the reason I serve and love serving, the thing that keeps me going esprit de corps shared by firefighters.
I come from a large family, and am proud of it. Now my family has become even larger, and I'm proud of that too. I have so many brothers and sisters--my family members who were firefighters, my station family, classmates, the people in the next city, the next county, state, country...
It's an incredible feeling knowing they have my back and I have theirs.
Congrats to everyone who made it to the top!
Here's to all those brothers and sisters who have gone on before us, and thank you to everyone who donated to the cause!!
1 comment:
Wow, Megan! That sounds like a tortuous climb! When I read '69 floors' before I didn't really realize it was 69 FLOORS! Way to go!!!
I hope you and Emily had a great time together in Seattle. :) Missed you both Sunday!
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