OK peeps, I’ve gone and signed up to do something completely insane awesome. On March 6th, I will be participating in the 2010 Fight for Air Climb: Master the Met, a stair climb race to benefit the American Lung Association. A bunch of girls from my work, other friends and I formed a team called The Social Climbers, and we will be raising money and then climbing the 42 flights of stairs that are housed by the Metropolitan Building in downtown St. Louis.
OMG, 42 flights!! What have I gotten myself into? My office is on the 5th floor of my building, and when I take the stairs I am gasping for breath by the time I get to to our floor. Now multiply that by 8.4, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be a heaping mess of sweat and tears and wobbly legs when I’m finished. IF I finish!!
Needless to say, it’s time to start training. We’ve got a hotel next door that has ten floors, so I plan to use that for training, since our building only has six. Climb ten, ride the elevator down, and do that three more times. Easy as pie, right? Right?
But as I huff and puff I can’t help but think of the people who fight for air all the time. People with lung cancer, asthma, COPD and influenza. These are the diseases that the American Lung Association is fighting to cure.
More than 35 million Americans suffer from chronic lung diseases and nearly 349,000 die each year as a result. Chronic lung disease and breathing problems constitute the number one killer of children under one year of age. The economic effect of asthma is tremendous- lung diseases cost the American economy $81.6 billion in direct healthcare expenditures every year, plus indirect costs of $76.2 billion – a total of more than $157.8 billion.
So, I am climbing for those who can’t. Will you help me by donating? I’ll even give you extra incentive. If I can raise $500, I will wear a tutu during the race, and I will post pictures afterwards to prove it. (If you read Chez Rougie, I kind of stole the idea from her, but I’m the one who showed her the tutu in the first place. If you’re not reading her, you should be. She’s hilarious.)
Click here or on the logo below to go directly to my donation page. Or if you’re feeling frisky, join my team and climb with me!
Thank you SO much for your help and support. I’ll keep you updated on my training. We’re having totally kick-ass team t-shirts made with the logo above and our names on the back. I’m trying to decide on a good name, because I really don’t want to use my boring name. Maybe something like “Killer”. Suggestions?
Also, I’m going to need some awesome music for my iPod, so if you have any good suggestions in the comments for songs that will get me and keep me motivated, please let me know in the comments!
Thanks again!
19 Comments
How about Pump It by Black Eyed Peas? That always keeps me wanting to move.
Good luck on your climb. I’m scared for you.
Oooh, good idea! I have Boom Boom Pow by them on my list! Thanks for the suggestion! And I’m scared for me too!
You are going to totally kick ass (can I say that on your blog?) Good Luck!!
Of COURSE you can say that on my blog! Hell yes! Thanks for the encouragement!
Great thing!
How about “Moving on up”?
Are you talking about the song from “The Jeffersons”? If so, that is PRICELESS!!
That’s awesome! I’m impressed. How about Fighter by Christina Aguilera?
Thanks!
And what a perfect song suggestion! Just bought from iTunes!! Thanks so much!!
1) Social Climbers is the most awesome team name EVER. How clever are you girls? Clev-Er.
2) My trainer calls me Beast. You can borrow the sobriquet if you’d like. I think you’re badass enough to carry it off.
3) So you TOTALLY introduced me to the tutu so I give you full credit for bringing that gorgeous crazy into my life which BTW I still have to order but oh yeah – 3 weekends of travel have left me putting the tutu on hold since um, hotels and shit. Yeah.
4) Thanks for the blog love. MWAH.
5) I ran 13.1 miles not too long ago. I can send you a list of 3 hours worth of music to motivate your ass up to the top of the building. And I will. But my faves these days are “For Your Entertainment” by Adam Lambert (makes me want to dance *exotically* if you know what I’m sayin) and “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga.
Good Luck. You’re going to do GREAT.
1) Thanks!! It wasn’t me who came up with it, although I’d like to take the credit because I’m an attention hog. 2) Judging from your blog post about your training, you ARE a beast! Compared to you I’m a lazy ass. OK I’m probably a lazy ass compared to anyone. Maybe that can be my name: Lazy Ass. Hmm, that makes me think of lazy eye, so maybe I don’t want people thinking one side of my ass wanders around. Damn. 3) I’m going to order mine too, regardless of how much money I raise, but SHHHHH don’t tell anyone! 4) You’re quite welcome! 5) That would be AWESOME! I love “For Your Entertainment”, and I totally know what you’re talking about (wink wink, nudge nudge). Everyone keeps telling me about Bad Romance so that’s getting downloaded today!! 6) You rock.
Good for you!
Songs? Hmm… nothing is coming to mind right now. I think I’m coming down with Man-cold so it’s effecting my thinking.
Thanks! I have a woman-cold, so I know what you’re going through. I think.
DUDE, you are TOTALLY going to need the very bad-assed Yeah Yeah Yeah’s:
Woah! …Sorry, I didn’t know the whole window would show up! Feel free to delete that if you need to!
No, I LOVE that it came up like that! Now everyone else can enjoy it too!!
I had the Today Show on this morning while I was getting ready for work and they had a commercial for the Master the Met. It’s not like we were IN the commercial or anything, but I still felt like we were pretty cool.
That’s because we ARE cool. I mean, come on. Look at us. We don’t even have to DO anything to BE cool, we just are. Climbing 42 flights of stairs just puts us into a higher category of cool.
Wow! I admire your conviction. I couldn’t commit to (or complete) more than 40 stairs total!
Way to go
Thanks!! It’s easier than you think. Did my first training session last night and it wasn’t so bad. Of course we were resting every six floors (since out building is only that high). 42 straight flights will be different!