I think I’m back
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Tonight was yet another practice run up the Aon building in downtown Los Angeles, and I think I’m finally over my respiratory troubles from the Stratosphere Tower climb in Las Vegas the weekend before last. Last Thursday when I did this, I was still coughing uncontrollably for several hours afterward. But tonight, I did it, I did it fast, and I didn’t have a coughing fit afterward. So all this is a Good Thing.
I rode the train downtown again. Riding the train is good because I can bring a book to read, which is a useful distraction, so I don’t have to think about climbing the stairs until I get there. Right now, I’m reading The All American Boys, which is Walter Cunningham’s memoir about his years as an Apollo astronaut back in the 1960s. It’s pretty entertaining, and keeps me from dreading what I’m about to do.
When I got to the building, I signed in and got ready to go. There was a small group of people who were about to start when I got to the stairs, and one of them decided to pace me at the start to see how fast I was going to go. He made it about 10 floors before he dropped off. This was a good reminder that, while I look at Mark and Jeff and those guys and think I’m not very fast, compared to the Average Bear, I’m not bad at this at all. And that’s good to know.
I saw a couple of other people in the stairs near the top. I had my split times clipped to the back of my hand, and I managed to stay pretty close to them all the way. And I stumbled out of the stairs with a time of 9:51, which is three seconds off my best time, but not bad at all.
It was a good outing.
