27'15"

Thanks to your generous donations, we have together raised $270 for WWF!

Earlier today, I, along with my team members from work, went downtown for the Corporate CN Tower climb. The weather was not really in our favour, it was quite cold and rainy, which already made me feel very tired and worn out (especially after a day from work!). We arrived at around 5:30pm, registered and lined to for the 6pm opening.

At 6:05, we were at the base of the CN Tower to take our group photo. After taking the group photo, we had to go through a security check where the machine blows bursts of air to see if anyone has any dangerous material on them (don't like that too much, made my hair fly all over the place). After the security check, it was 143 flights of stairs straight up!

I got to admit, if it wasn't for my colleague, I think it would have taken me way longer than 27 minutes. He was pushing me to do more flights of stairs before taking a break, and that was very helpful (trust me, I didn't feel that way during the climb). This helped me beat my target time of 30 minutes, so thanks very much!

During my climb, I took around 5 breaks, each break around 1-2 minutes. But let me tell you, by the time I reached flight 70-80, I was thinking to myself, "Screw the animals! There is no way I can finish!" I really felt the burning in my lungs...perhaps I did not fully recover from my cold (almost bronchitis) last week, I am more out of breath than usual. I kept thinking about your generous donations and that was honestly a huge motivation for me to keep going and aiming to beat my target of 30 minutes.

Despite the pain, I really pushed myself in that next 10-20 flights (thanks to my colleague) and it was the sweetest thing to see the number "100" on the wall! By then, my mentality changed and I was really aiming to go all the way to 143 without stopping! By the 143 flight, there is a sensor pad where I 'beep' my wristband (every runner has to 'beep' once at the bottom of the tower to start the stopwatch and 'beep' at the top to stop it). That was a breathless (literally) moment!

However, after the 143 flights, there are actually 8-10 more flights before reaching the top. Even though those are not timed, they were the hardest flights for sure!!! Imagine, it's like telling you there is 1 more question on the exam after you have completed it!

I found it very mean that they have tons of photographers at the top of the tower waiting for us. I mean, after this kind of workout, nobody, I mean nobody can look half decent. They took several pictures of me (I think...), and I wasn't really impressed because I know how awful I must look....let's cross my fingers that they won't post it online!!!

We took the elevator down (all that work and over in 15 seconds) and had a free dinner at Joe Baddali's across the street. Their pasta was awesome!

Later that evening, my mom pointed out that I raised $270 and it took me 27 minutes to go up, so that equates to $10 a minute! What a coincidence!!!

Thanks again for all your support and contribution! The environment is important to all of us!