The Columbia tower. It's the second tallest building west of the Mississippi River. There are 69 flights of stairs, 1311 steps, and 788ft of vertical elevation that I took to get to the top.
My helmet for the event. A pic of Gabby from her wedding just a few months ago, and then a Spartan patch on the front. It reads "With Your Shield Or On It". Meaning come home victorious, or come home on your shield, having fought honorably and never backing down 'til your last breath was gone.
All dressed up and ready to go!
My beautiful wife before the event
Jeff and I as we were heading up to the staging area to start. Jeff is also doing the Boise 70.3 Ironman with me.
Jeff and I with the tower behind us, ready to go.
Once it was over, this is what I looked like coming off the elevator.
A pic of the entire NFD team.
The event itself was AMAZING! There were Firefighters from all over the country, Canada and I was told even Germany (although I never saw/heard them). I wish I could have gotten a pic of the lobby area of the Columbia Center. It was absolutely packed with guys and gear everywhere. Departments had their own little sections that they staked out early in the am and there was just a ton of people coming and going. Seattle FD had their Pipe's and Drum team there, and they would occasionally start playing the Bagpipes and drums and it just filled the entire lobby and was super cool. It was insane just how many people were there.
Shawna and I got into town the night before, and even in the dark and through the rain, the tower looked menacing. I wondered what the hell did I get myself into? The day of the event, I walked down the street to the tower around 10am. By that time, the event was well under way with the first climbers hitting the stairs just after 9am. My climb time wasn't until 330pm, so I had some time to kill. I checked in, got my paperwork and number and checked in on the some of the guys. I then made my way back to the hotel and got a late breakfast, early lunch with Shawna down by Pike's market and just tried to relax. Shawna and I met up with Jeff and his family at the market before the event. When it was getting close to our start time, Jeff and I went back to the hotel to gather my gear and head to the tower. Once in the tower, the nerves started to kick in. I must have gone pee every 10-15 min from when I got there to when I had to line up. Not that anything was coming out, but I just had the nervous urge. It didn't help that by that time, they were running late, and Jeff and I wouldn't start until after 415pm. That just made my nerves worse and wore me down. By the time we were walking outside to the entrance of the stairwell, I was already tired.
Jeff had done this event once before so he knew what to expect. But for me and my first time, I had not a clue. I remember hearing a story from another firefighter about not turning your bottle all the way on for the event. The thought being that when you're down to your last 1/4 tank, the low air alarm will use more air if the bottle is opened all the way (it either whistles or has a bell depending on the maker). I thought that would be a good idea, so I only turned my bottle on just a little bit. I also thought that I'd be able to do the climb with one 45min bottle. Both of those would come back to haunt me during the event.
Problem #1: Not enough air. I did outpace myself on the start, and hit the stairs pretty hard. I thought that I was doing good when I was only 4 or 5 floors up and I started passing people. But the problem was that I couldn't get enough air. Having the bottle open as little as I did made breathing way harder. Every time I went to take a breath in, my mask would suck to my face as the air came rushing in. This not only got me more tired, quicker, it was also screwing with my head and throwing me off mentally. All I was doing was just sucking harder and harder and could never really catch my breath. Somewhere around floor 25 it donned on me that maybe, just maybe, I should be smarter and open my bottle more. Now my mask was no longer sucking into my face, but by that time I was exhausted. I continued to climb, although still not as fast as I had originally started. But I was chugging along, and around the half way mark I was at about a 16:30-17:00 min pace for completion.
Problem #2: Right after the halfway point is the "pits", the one chance you have to swap out and get a fresh bottle if you need one. For those who don't know, the bottle rating for the time is based on someone sitting in a chair watching tv breathing air. So the 30 or 45 min bottles (which are the most common) do not actually last that long when you are working and breathing hard. On the fire grounds, you're lucky if you can get your 30min bottle to last 20-22 min. They usually only last about 15-18 min when you're working up a good sweat. Like I said, I didn't think that I would need another bottle. I knew that I'd probably be cutting it close, but one 45 min bottle should be plenty. So I didn't reserve a bottle with our team bottle changer. When I got to the entrance of the pits I just went right past and got ready to tackle the next set of stairs. At the last minute though, I decided to look at my gauge. Oh man, I was low, really low. I had about a third of a tank left. Crap! I better go grab a new bottle real quick while I have the chance so I thought. Well, since I didn't reserve one, there wasn't one waiting for me. Ted, our bottle changer didn't bring any extra bottle or packs with him, just enough to cover the guys who said that they would want one. So I made my way through the pits, said Hi and then went right back to the stairs. Ted felt awful that he couldn't help me, but there were a couple other NFD guys behind me who were going to need those bottles, and Ted wouldn't have enough time to go back down stairs and grab another bottle for them had I gotten one of theirs.
I took a min to catch my breath once I realized that I wasn't able to get another bottle before hitting the stairs again. I decided that I would just go as far as that bottle was going to let me, and then I'd just take my regulator off and keep on trucking. Which is exactly what I did. Around floor 60 is when I ran out of air and sucked the bottle dry. At that point, I took my regulator off my mask and kept on climbing, which probably wasn't the best idea either. Now I was building up some CO2 with rebreathing some of my exhalation, and I could no longer really see since I fogged up the inside of my mask. Still I kept on climbing.
Every landing in between the floors were posters of people who had been affected by Leukemia or Lymphoma. Some were just ordinary people, some were Firefighters in their uniforms. Some were kids, and some were adults. It was awesome to see all the posters to remind people why it was we were there. For those who somehow didn't know anyone that has been affected it was a motivation to keep going. The higher and higher I climbed, the more that guys were ducking off to the sides at the top of the landings to catch their breaths. Each one I gave a slap on the helmet, or a pat on the shoulder to encourage them to keep going. One guy had taken his helmet and mask off and was taking a break from the climb, but everyone that past him he was encouraging them to continue on.
I finally made it to the top, somewhere after the 21 or 22 min mark, a little slower than the sub 20 that I was hoping for. I was a little disappointed in the time, but more frustrated than anything else. The lack of air, and then no extra bottle really took it's toll. But I was also very happy. I was happy that I was able to finish, able to be a part of an awesome fundraising event. There still is no official dollar amount posted on what was raised, but the last time I checked my department was in the top 5, with raising $19,076. Boise fire was also in the top 5. To have 2 departments practically next door to each other be in the top 5 is HUGE. Myself, personally, I was the second highest fundraiser in the department at $2095. To EVERYONE who donated or had positive thoughts and prayers for all of us during the event, THANK YOU!!!! Your support meant so much to all of us, and to all of the people who will benefit from the money that was raised. It was an amazing experience, and one that I plan to do again.
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