New Year New Challenge: What Floor Are We On??

 From Kathey Moskal:

One day in November, I received an email from Alison Phelan entitled “New Year New Challenge” and my immediate thought was what am I getting myself into now.  Well, the new challenge was a stair climb to benefit the American Lung Association called the Race up Boston Place – 41 stories – 82 flights of stairs all to raise money for the Lung Association, so of course in my infinite wisdom I said – hey this is something that I can’t get lost doing and it sounds like fun, so let’s put a team together and do it! For me, I had a special reason for doing it, a very good friend of mine from college was diagnosed with a very rare lung disease and had a double lung transplant 2 years ago, so I guess I had an ulterior motive.

Now having done it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  We put a team together, myself, Allison Rourke, Shari Hewson, Michele Campbell, and Michele’s friend Mei Fulton (Susan Keezer was also on our team, but due to an injury was unable to climb). Alison P who talked us all into this was on another team. There were about 600 climbers starting about every 20 seconds and I really thought – no problem, I can run a 10K, I ran a 15K in Lynn Woods (sort of) how hard could 41 stories of stairs really be, people were finishing in under 5 minutes, I can do this.  Well folks let me you, this was one of the most difficult, but also one of the most rewarding things I have ever done! The support at each floor was great, there were signs at many of the flights comparing how high we were compared to things like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and many other landmarks as well as pictures of people who had survived various lung diseases to inspire the climbers to continue on. I hit the 10^th floor and my calves and my lungs were on fire, I hit floor 20 and thought I’m only halfway done, at floor 30 I thought I still have 11 to go, but by floor 35 I could hear the people at the top yelling and cheering for the climbers and that got me to the top saying that was awesome and I can’t wait to do it again next year.

The after party at The Bell and Hand was wonderful – lots of great snacks for the climbers. While partaking in the after party, I could still feel my legs tingling and burning, but what a great feeling to know that we all accomplished such a unique challenge. I challenge each and every one of you to be a part of the Wicked Climbers next year and join us to raise awareness and money for such a great cause.