Moving Forward is Hard
On Blogger here.
This week I've decided to take a break from trying to inspire to talk about being inspired.
For the second year in a row I participated in the Terry Farrell Firefighter Fund's annual stair climb event. The Terry Fund is a worthy cause, and I highly recommend looking into it here. This event is to remember the 343 fire and rescue lives lost in the attacks, and to climb 110 stories worth of stairs in a sort of 21 gun salute to them, and what they stood for. It is an amazing event where people of all walks of life gather together to honor people who made the ultimate sacrifice during the attack.
To be honest I wasn't going to do it this year. I just didn't feel I had it in me, and didn't want to quit halfway through. My friends weren't hearing that excuse, though. After probably about an hour, or two, of trying to hype me up my buddy finally got me to commit. I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled about it, but I knew it was for a good cause so I wasn't terribly upset. Sunday I showed up in my kilt, and felt mostly ready to tackle the monumental task of climbing a 16 story building a full seven times.
You read that right. It's only a 16 story building so we had to climb, then queue up for the elevator, and pack sweaty selves into it for a ride down to then start again. This of course meant some nice breaks, but to be honest there wasn't much airflow so it was pretty sticky up there.
I'm getting off track. Here's a picture of a few of us at the top of our 6th lap. I was trying to look badass, but I was so exhausted that I look kind of brain damaged.
So it was around the second or third lap that I felt absolutely nauseous, and wanted nothing more than to throw in the towel. The two jokers in the above picture, however, weren't having any of that. I had already committed to doing the event, and they were going to see me do it through to the end. Their words of encouragement along with the friendly words from everyone else climbing those stairs really made me suck it up, and put one foot in front of the other. It felt great to climb those stairs with the men and women from the various counties, and cities' fire and rescue teams. And at the end, when I finished that seventh lap, I couldn't have been more proud of myself, and thankful for the great people around me.
I really wanted to share this to really hammer home some of the points I've made in prior posts. Surrounding yourself with positive people who want to see you succeed, motivating yourself, and just doing something different can really come together to create an absolutely amazing experience that you will remember for years to come.
With all of that said, and as promised, here are the progress pictures. Now, I've been through this before so I know what to expect. The first several weeks will see an increase on the scale, and not much change in the photos. After those weeks have passed though, the changes will really start to shine through.
