1 hour, 09 mins, 52 seconds of pure climbing hell!

Wowza what a challenge THAT was. A breakdown of my CN Tower stair climb is as follows:

- stopped on the 10th floor and was already feeling tired, only 134 flights left to go
- stopped on the 20th and for a split second thought about turning around and going back down
- stopped on the 30th and thought that my lungs were going to explode, pain in my lungs was tremendous - cursed myself for all the damage done from smoking for so many years.
- stopped on 40 and realized that time no longer mattered, this was about pride and just completing this climb
- decided to break down the floors in 5 flight sets with breaks after each set
- got into a rhythm from from 40 to 72, the half way mark. High 5'ved my climbing partner at the thought of actually climbing that high. Tried not to think about still having 72 more to go. At this point our ears started to get plugged because of the altitude.
-72 to 100 was a bit easier. Decided that instead of thinking about doing another 44 floors, we would concentrate on doing 8 sets of 5 flights and just count down from 8. This worked tremendously.
-made it to the top...... I think the cruelest part was they stamp your card at the top and you think you are done but then you have to climb another 10 flights to get out into to tower. It was awesome coming through the door though, drenched in sweat, to the cheers of the crowds at the top.

To me the best part of the day was the people. Everyone on the stairs was cheering everyone else on, it was lovely to see and to be a part of. Fellow blogger CD Blueberry often talks about "not fitting" being a bigger person, and today everyone fit and that was fantastic. Just as a side note, the best part of the day was meeting a young woman who stopped to rest with us at about floor 110. She was in obvious pain and I asked if she was alright. She said she wasn't sure if she could continue for another 34 floors and I told her we were breaking it down into sets of 5 flights and surely she could do that 6 more times.... So she kept pace with us and we helped each other out. When we stopped on floor 130 she told us that she was fulfilling a promise she made to her mother a few weeks ago when she died of breast cancer. She promised her she would complete the CN tower climb. This totally inspired me to push hard at the end and get up there with her and that totally got us to the top where she thanked me for helping her through when she thought she wouldn't make it.

I have attached some photos of the day and have included some pictures from the top looking down, just so you can see how high we really were(note: the official height from the base up to the main deck of the tower is 342 metres (1,122.0 ft).)